Firebird
by Helen Fayle
Summary: Seeking the planet Breceliande, lost to the Alliance for centuries, Taliesin finds that not all legends are exactly what they seem.
1. Kastchei's Enchanted Garden

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Firebird

By Helen Fayle

One: Kastchei's Enchanted Garden and The Apparition of the Firebird

In a place below the great ice-rivers, beyond the ice forests and beneath the northern stars, dwelt the Tribe. These were the latter days of Winter, when Spring had not yet come to the land, and all lay still under the weight of the Great Baba's cloak of ice, awaiting the warm winds and the slow drip-drip from the craggy cliffs above the tents of the tribe. And in the long nights, the Grey Wolf howled.

Winter is long, on Skazki: years will turn and turn again before the seasons end: before the ice, as deep as an ocean in places, retreats behind the sheltering wall of the Black Mountains. And then, following hard on the heels of the thaw, comes the summer, and with it, the great herds of musk-bison, mammoth, and woolly rhinoceros making their way up from the winter grazing lands back to the highlands, where the snows last longest, and the sun is weaker.

With them, always with them, will go The Tribes.

To the first tribe of the northern icelands, this was a time of plenty: the russet furred herds of shaggy mammoths, skinny with their stores of winter fat fast vanishing were at least still plentiful. Called to their deaths by the greatest shaman of the tribes, they laid down their lives for the people as needed.

And in the darkness after the tribe had left the killing grounds, the wolves would descend, from the mountains to finish the scraps the people left for them. Tribute, or token, none could say.

Volkhvy, they called the shaman. (For none knew her name, and that is as it should be, for names have power, and none more so than the name of a woman who walks the worlds of the spirits.). And this shamanka had an apprentice, a child found on the soggy tundra many Long Counts of days before.

Volkhvy, after speaking with the spirits for four days and nights, called the child "Phoenix". And despite the winter hardships, the child grew strong, and tall and beautiful. Dark hair had Phoenix, like a raven's wing caught by sunlight. And eyes as blue as a noonday sky (not as bright perhaps as a summer day, but then, Phoenix was born in Winter, and Summer was still to come).

Yet for all this straight-limbed beauty, there were few in the tribe who would call Phoenix "friend", being afraid: some amongst them claimed that the child was born of the leshy, not of men, and wasn't the proof of that manifest in the strangeness of the youth? For Phoenix was neither man nor woman, when grown, yet somehow partook of the essence and form of both.

And for this reason, perhaps more than any, when the lots were cast in the twelfth Lesser Year after the child's finding, the name "Phoenix" was drawn from the otterskin first.

The Lottery had been held once in a generation since the Time of Isolation began, or so the shamans said: once in every season, the Great Dragon would come, to the Place of Choosing, there to find the offering.

The shamans usually found the remains, desiccated by cold, gnawed by wolves and other predators not too proud to eat carrion. Such things as were left were moved and discretely buried. Better for the tribe if it is believed that _all_ are taken.

But the shamans whisper in the long dark nights. _They_ know that sometimes, there is no body. 

The Great Dragon takes them. That is the tale. The serpent of blue fire, Keeper of the Covenant. For this is the will of the dragon - that one will be brought, once in a great Cycle of seasons, to the spindle upon which the world turns, there to be left, until the next turning.

And for this reason, Phoenix was travelling with Volkhvy, and so found the stranger.

There was a storm coming: the clouds hung heavily over the icy plain, and the tundra here was devoid of any kind of shelter. Not a tree, not a bush in sight. Phoenix was having to pull the sled, as Volkhvy refused to refresh the levitation spells that usually powered it, and now perched upon their supplies, huddled deep within a mammoth-fur parka, like a wizened old bannik in a bath tent, lifting her head only to shout whenever the runners hit a tussock or rock buried under the deep cover of the snow. Head down, intent upon the treacherous footing, Phoenix didn't see the man until hir booted foot almost trod on his head. Phoenix came to an abrupt halt, shaking the shamanka from her reverie.

'Not enough to rattle my old bones, careless child, you now seek to have me fall and break my neck?' Volkhvy grumbled.

'You prefer I draw the sled over this man's head?' Phoenix asked, inspecting the creature at hir feet. Volkhvy snorted, and shrugged deeper into her furs.

'Why not? He's not one of us.' Her head poked out of the hood briefly, peering, although from where she sat she could see little of the fallen man. 'A trick of the leshy? To catch us off guard, eh?'

Phoenix turned the man over, and the stranger groaned softly. His face had the reddened look of wind-chill, despite the thick beard he bore. His hair and beard both were of a shade of red unknown to the tribe. His eyes were tight closed, and rimmed with ice, and ice also dusted his beard and hair. His clothes, nowhere near thick enough for the Winter, were of a woven cloth, and black under a light covering of snow. Phoenix pulled a hand away suddenly from hir examination, grimacing. The mitten was covered in blood. A closer look revealed a deep wound in his side, bleeding sluggishly.

'He's hurt, Elder.' Phoenix placed hands under his shoulders and dragged him to the sled, puffing at the effort of lifting him to a place next to the shaman. 

'No care of ours, child. Put him back where you found him!'

'I'll take responsibility for him, Elder. You just heal him.' Phoenix took hir place back at the front of the sled, slipping slim arms back into the harness. The toe of a boot caught something on the ground and she bent to pick it up: a large sealed case of a strange, iridescent leather, with, in one corner, the embossed design of two ravens in flight. This was placed next to the stranger, who stirred and reached for it, sighing as his hand touched it. Phoenix caught sight of Volkhvy's face as she stared at this item.

'You recognise this?' Phoenix pointed to the device. The shaman shrugged.

'Maybe.' She turned her attention to the injured man. 'Maybe this one is worth saving after all.' She pulled her hands free of her mittens and began probing the man's wound. Several heartbeats later, she looked up and stared at Phoenix, who still watched him. 'Child, shall we never get to your death before the advent of Summer?'

Phoenix picked up the harness again and threw hir weight into it, noticing that the weight was once again being taken up by the shaman's incantations.

'My death?' Phoenix muttered as the sled glided behind. 'You're such a comfort, Elder.'

'Thank you,' Volkvhy said, without a trace of irony. 

~~~

__

'...there's something wrong, the controls won't respond. I'm going to bring it down...' 

'Tal? Tal?'

The comlink hissed only static at her, before going dead. One by one, the lights on the instrument panel went out, ans she thumped it in a mix of despair and anger. Outside, a blizzard raged, and now she had no choice but to brave it, hoping that the settlement they'd seen from the air wasn't too far away...

...stupid, stupid, never fall asleep in snow, never set out on your own, on a strange world... lost, lostlost, Tal gone, where? Crashed?

So tired... ... howling on the wind... Red eyes glowing in the night and a dark shape, not human, wearing a hart's horns bending over her, and it's all wrong, it's white, it should go... 

Black.

~~~

Winter raged outside the high walls; she knew this. But in the quiet peace of the gardens, this was hard to accept. Here, it was perpetually spring, the season maintained by deep sorceries. A demonstration of casual power that was not lost upon the short, slender young woman who walked carefully tended paths with her hostess at her side.

'You seem distant today, Vivienne.' 

Vivienne ventured a reserved smile. 'I'm sorry, your majesty. But I still worry about Tal.' She didn't mention the nightmare that she'd woken up from that morning.

'Call me Alianora.' The Queen of Winter smiled, and flicked red hair off her shoulders with a studied gesture. She wore her straight hair parted simply in the centre, and no crown adorned her brow. Yet she did indeed comport herself like a queen. Vivienne had the impression that the lack of ornamentation was as deliberate a statement as the presence of it would have been in another: A statement that this woman wielded so much power that she needed no symbols of it. The only jewellery she wore was a large ornate bracelet in the shape of a serpent eating its own tail, with a single glittering green eye.

In a way this excess of restraint was also true for the man who now approached them, his forest-green cloak sweeping the short grass of the carefully cultured lawn. Like Alianora, this man was red-haired, although his was so dark in some lights as to approach Vivienne's chestnut tones. In the sunlight, however, it burned like fire. Like Alianora he radiated power in every mannerism and gesture, and he had the height and build to carry it well. 

Kastchei bowed as he reached the two women, taking and kissing Vivienne's hand, before taking his queen's in his own and drawing her closer, tucking her arm under his own. He smiled, his wide generous mouth not hidden by a neatly trimmed beard. He had reminded her painfully of Taliesin, at first. 

'It is well that you are feeling better, my dear. Aleschka and I were rather worried at first.' Alianora smiled briefly, and untangled her arm from his.

Vivienne smiled weakly, but met his piercing gaze. His emerald green eyes had a glitter to them that she found quite unnerving. Despite his superficial resemblance to Taliesin, she didn't feel as though she would ever shake the need for caution around this man. 

'My thanks, Lord Kastchei. I understand I have you to thank for my life?'

He brushed aside her thanks with a gesture of his gloved hand. 'You were fortunate to be found when you were, my dear. Your injuries were severe. But now that you are well, perhaps I can take you back to your craft. I must confess, I'm fascinated by your story. I'd like to take a close look at the ship.'

__

I just bet you would, Vivienne thought. She took care to let no trace show on her face, and schooled herself to smile brightly. 'Thank you, I'd appreciate it,' she told them.

The Queen of Winter and the Lord of the Summer Country... Without Tal she had only the vaguest idea of the stories behind those titles, and these names were not associated with them in the fragments they'd uncovered prior to coming here.

But Kastchei... _that_ name she knew from the mythology of her own world. In spite of the warmth over the sheltered garden, she shivered slightly. There is a lesson in names, Tal always said. Never ignore them.

Kastchei Bess-Mertny. Kastchei the Undying. 

Watch your step, Viv, she told herself sternly, silently as she allowed Alianora to lead her inside, Kastchei looming quietly at her side. _There's a lesson in names_. She stared up at the clear blue sky before stepping over the threshold of the palace. If only Tal was here he'd be able to make sense of it all.

__

If he were still alive...

~~~

On the third day after the finding of the red-haired stranger, they arrived at the Place of Choosing, and the stranger's eyes opened. 

They were green, Phoenix saw, but were not the eyes of sorcerers always so? But pale, like agates, not the deep green of jade or emerald.

'Hah.' The Grey Wolf said, sitting up on his haunches and scratching an ear with his back leg. 'I see my dinner will have to wait.'

The stranger looked nervous at this, and Phoenix hushed the Grey Wolf. 'Hold your tongue, old friend. You would not have eaten this one.'

The Grey Wolf sniffed. 'Perhaps. He is a little on the scrawny side.' His cold wet nose touched the man's cheek. With all credit to the stranger, Phoenix thought, the man did not flinch. 'I like them fatter.'

With that he padded over to the fire and flopped beside it, his head on his paws, staring at the makeshift litter they'd laid the man on earlier.

There was a noise, and Phoenix realised the man was trying to speak, clearing a throat too long unused.

'Be at ease,' Phoenix said. 'You are safe.'

The Grey Wolf gave a barking cough at this. 'Safe. Yes. Very safe. Maybe the Dragon will not get you, eh? Maybe _I_ will not get you?'

Volkhvy laughed at this, and Phoenix saw the stranger attempt a smile.

'Where do you hail from?' The shamanka asked. 'To be out so far from the lowlands, garbed for Summer? Are you some kind of fool?'

The man smiled and tried to sit up, aided by Phoenix. Really, Phoenix thought, he was quite handsome, in his strange way.

'Our dromond - ' he hesitated. 'Our flying machine-'

Volkhvy interrupted him. 'I do know what a dromond is, boy. Do you think us ignorant, out here in the steppes, hmm?'

The man blushed to the roots of his hair, a peculiar sight, Phoenix thought.

'My apologies. I have become used to travelling in places where such things are unknown.'

'Hmm,' said the shaman, un-mollified. 'You crashed, eh? How did you manage that? It's not as if the ground is difficult to spot!' She laughed at her own joke, but only the Grey Wolf, gnawing on a bone by the fire, did likewise.

The man smiled gravely. 'My name is Taliesin,' he said softly. 'And my tale is this...'

Phoenix sat at the foot of the sled, crossed hir legs, and began to listen.

~~~

'There isn't a great deal to tell,' Vivienne accepted Kastchei's unspoken offer of a refill and held out her goblet for him to top up with the wine. 'Our craft malfunctioned, soon after we entered the atmosphere. Taliesin - that's my -' she paused, looking for the right term.

'You spoke of him whilst you were feverish, my dear.' Alianora leaned forwards, her chin resting on her hands. 'Quite fondly, I might add. Is he your husband?'

'Oh good grief no! We're both far too independent and stubborn for that to work.' She caught and amused smile on Kastchei's face, which was quickly veiled. 'We work well together, and we're good friends.'

'Lovers?' His face was a study in impassivity but Vivienne caught again a trace of amusement in the Lord of Summer's voice. 

'None of your damn business,' she told him brusquely. His smile, which several times veered from feral to playful, widened with genuine amusement. He popped a piece of meat into his mouth and sat back in his chair, as if pleased he'd finally got the reaction he wanted.

'For shame, my lord,' Alianora chided him, so obviously insincere that Vivienne thought the woman could have given Solange a run for her money - and Taliesin's deputy was frequently as subtle as a brick, even on a good day. 'I think my husband simply meant that we're just concerned, my dear - the loss of a loved one is always more distressing than that of a colleague.'

'Oh I think I know exactly what Lord Kastchei meant,' Vivienne said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him raise his glass very slightly in salute, and had to take a hurried sip to hide her laugh. Really, the man was impossible. 'I lost contact with Tal about six hours after we landed. I stayed to look at the dromond, then I'd planned to check out a habitat we'd seen to the south - I assume it was this palace?' When Alianora nodded, she continued. 'Tal headed north, in our ornithopter.'

'You mentioned earlier that you were looking for someone?' Kastchei placed his goblet on the table and leaned towards her. 'Just what could possibly bring emissaries from the Alliance this far out?'

'There was an incident, a few months ago - one of the Rose Legion's druids, still loyal to the old order, went to a great deal of trouble to find the co-ordinates for this world.' 

Alianora arose from her seat, with a peculiar look on her face. Vivienne flashed her attention to Kastchei, although the sorcerer's inhumanly green eyes made his face difficult to read at best. Whereas Alianora looked a little agitated, his mien was merely curious.

'Go on,' he told her. Vivienne amended the rest of her story hastily.

'That's it, really. We don't know what they want with this planet - it's isolated and uncharted, as best we could ascertain. The High King simply asked us to take a look, and so we came.'

Under the pretext of taking a drink, Kastchei lifted his goblet to his lip, but Vivienne saw him raise his finger, masked from Alianora's sight, and make a shushing motion so small, she wasn't at all sure she'd even seen it, until he spoke.

'Perhaps you would like to ride out to your craft tomorrow, Vivienne? There might be some hope either of contacting your companion, and at the very least, the exercise would do you good.'

'Kastchei, she's only just been healed from some terrible injuries, let her rest a while.' Alianora was the voice of reason, but after three weeks of inactivity, Vivienne wouldn't have felt like listening, even if she had trusted the woman.

'Actually I'd be delighted to accept Lord Kastchei's offer, your majesty,' she said, as lightly as she could. She pushed herself away from the table and stood up. 'If you'll both excuse me, however, I'd like to get a little air before retiring?' The Queen nodded her assent, and she left the room with more than a little relief. The tension between Queen and Lord was starting to get to her, she thought, leaning against the panelled hall wall for support. That, and the fact that she was worried sick about Tal. With a heartfelt sigh she pushed herself upright, and wandered out to the garden.

The walled garden had been laid out in the shape of a grassy lemniscate - a familiar stylised hourglass bounded by a circle, the neatly trimmed lawns interspersed with gravel paths - although at times it could be difficult to decide whether it was the paths, or the grass, that provided the maze. Tonight, her path lit by the flickering torches that cast pools of ruddy light over the ground, Vivienne chose the paths, hopping over a narrow strip of grass when it intersected her course. 

'That could be called cheating.' She jumped, her heart pounding with fright, as she heard the voice behind her, whispering in her ear. The Lord of Summer, making no concession to Winter in his dress - his white shirt was coloured a pale red by the torchlight, and was open as usual to the waist, displaying his lean but muscular chest to the best advantage. His dark hair also caught the light, and flamed in the torchlight, curling onto the top of his collar. _I'm surprised they didn't call him "Kastchei the Vain..."_ she thought, and immediately chided herself mentally for being uncharitable. 

'Lord Kastchei, you startled me.' He offered her his arm, and with a slight hesitation, she took it. 

'I'm sorry, you were just so lost in thought I couldn't resist.' He led her over to a stone seat, and sat her down, taking his place beside her. 'And please, dispense with the formality, Vivienne. On Skazki it is customary to use a more familiar form of a name amongst friends. Call me Kastya, if you wish.'

'Can you make anything of "Vivienne"?' she asked, with a laugh. 'Not even Tal shortens it.'

He looked thoughtful for a moment, a small smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. 'Would you allow "Nina"?'

'Could I stop you?'

He laughed. 'Probably not. Names are so important, don't you think?' She froze, hearing that: The very words Taliesin had said to her upon their first meeting. Kastchei's expression softened. 'I struck a nerve it seems, I'm sorry.'

'No. It's just... an old memory.'

'This Taliesin of yours?'

She smiled, bringing his face to mind easily. 'Yes.'

'Ah,' he said. Just that, nothing more. He took her arm and walked beside her, almost imperceptibly steering her towards the palace and inside. At the door of her room he kissed her hand and bowed deeply. 'Until tomorrow,' he said, and strode away, leaving her more than a little baffled. However she couldn't help noticing that he bypassed the partly-open door to Alianora's rooms, and instead made his way back downstairs. For a moment she was tempted to follow, but the lateness of the hour and her recent exertions had caught up with her. She yawned deeply and opted for a warm bed instead.

~~~

Alianora awoke alone in her bed, though not for the first time. Of late, Kastchei had taken to spending less time with her overall. Avoiding her, she knew. It made life easier, of late, but still, it rankled that the choice had been his, not hers.

What lay between them had never been love, although it had been, for a time, intense. A perfect performance, frequently enjoyable, yet ultimately souless. And yet she missed him, at times. Flesh was after all so demanding, and like everything else, he attended to that task with meticulous efficiency.

She found him eventually, as she might have known she would, in the kennels, grooming the great albino cybrorse that he rode to the Hunt - Sivushka. She contented herself with watching him as he worked, stripped to the waist in total disregard for the chill air of the early morning. Whilst she could never understand his insistence upon performing such menial tasks himself, she could at least appreciate the effect: the rippling play of hard muscle under perfect skin, the way his dark auburn hair, allowed to fall freely, brushed his shoulders. She twisted the serpent bracelet on her arm, for a moment almost regretting her choices. Then he turned, and the moment was gone. There was no emotion in his face or voice when he spoke.

'My queen,' he bowed, low enough to be just this side of perfunctory, yet not quite. Not quite. Yet she did not miss the implied slight.

They knew each other too well.

'You still plan on riding out with our guest?' Alianora asked. She moved aside as Kastchei pushed past her to place the brushes in their rack, casually slung over the bar that blocked the stable door.

'Am I supposed to let her ride out there alone?' he asked. Sivushka swung his quarters into his path, and he slapped the stallion's rump and pushed him back over. 'Or is this sudden concern jealousy?' His hand touched her cheek briefly, almost tenderly. But she met his gaze with her own and saw the flicker of something else in those emerald depths. She pulled away, and saw his brief smile as he turned away from her.

So, he still enjoyed provoking a response? Annoyed, she turned on her heel and walked away.

'Don't wait up,' he called out after her. She could hear the amusement in the tone of his voice. Her shoulders, already tense, stiffened still further. That he found his little stray attractive she could live with. She wouldn't be the first to warm his bed. But that he could still manipulate her so well... That, as it had always been, was unforgivable.

'I won't,' she muttered under her breath. She drew her fur-trimmed cloak closer, even though she didn't feel the cold. 

'Aleschka-'

She almost turned then, at his use of the familiar. She could picture him standing there quite clearly in her mind's eye: even down to the look of concern on his normally shuttered face. Almost, but the impulse was fleeting. She straightened her back and walked on, head held high.

She didn't bother to answer Vivienne's smiled "good morning" as the smaller woman passed her.

~~~

Vivienne reined in her mount at the top of the hill, and leaned over its neck, patting it as a pretext while she got her breath back. Ahead of her, she saw Kastchei's steed, black on white against the snow, pause in its gallop, and turn, guided back to her side by its master. All in white, he was: his shirt open to the waist in defiance of the Winter air that held a bitter chill. All in white, but for the boots, which were a polished black, and his coat, which was a deep blue. One of the massive hounds frisked at his feet, and her cybrid steed had to dodge a whipping tail. His hounds were white, almost lost against the snow but for their red eyes and ears: huge cybrid mastiffs the size of a small pony. 

'My apology, Lady.' If a man could bow on horseback, he somehow managed it. 'I should remember that few steeds even in my stable can keep pace with Voronushka.' The black cybrid stallion pawed the snow as if recognising his name - and somehow, given the nature of these beasts, it would not surprise her. Cybrids were not engineered to be intelligent as a rule, but this - this was Skazki, once called Breceliande, and the rules were different, here. She detected a more than animal intelligence in the eyes of both pack and steeds, and couldn't shake the feeling that that was exactly the way things were supposed to be, around here. She wouldn't have been surprised to hear the horse talk. 

'I needed the rest myself,' she said eventually, still a little breathless. She looked skywards, as the light faded suddenly, a cloud obscuring the sun. More hovered on the horizon, dark and heavy. 'But perhaps we should return?'

'Perhaps.' His smile was amused. 'But your craft lies just over the next rise - you did still wish to see it?' he paused, dramatically poised. 'Or do you fear to be alone with me?'

'A little,' Vivienne replied, caught off guard. Something, a sense honed by years of putting herself in the line of fire, warned her not to lie to this man - she felt that he would see through any subterfuge. But there were ways of avoiding an outright lie.

'You are in no danger from me, Vivienne. You have my word on that.' He offered his hand, the black stallion neatly moving over until it stood flank to flank with her bay mare. 

It brought her leg into contact with his, seemingly by chance, and she tried to ignore it. His offered hand took hers, turned it palm upwards, kissed the gloved palm. A simple gesture, but she didn't miss the meaning. The sombre forest green of her cloak flapped against the pristine white of his shirt - and then, like a flurry of snow in a storm, he was gone, riding for the next rise in the landscape, the black stallion plunging through the deep snow, his eerie white hounds baying at its heels.

She followed, at a slower pace, wary of the landscape, and even more so of her situation. She thought of the red-haired woman who ruled this winter world, and shivered. There were many things here to be afraid of, she cautioned herself sternly.

She resisted the temptation to look behind, even knowing that the palace was too far to see. The dromond lay ahead, and with it, perhaps, some answers. If she could only keep Kastchei from looking too closely.

~~~

The Grey Wolf stared at the stranger for some time after he had finished his peculiar tale. Phoenix pondered the stranger - _Taliesin's_ face as he watched them from his side of the fire, his red hair catching the firelight and seeming to glow in the night. Phoenix could indeed believe that this man came from another world, seeing him thus.

'Your friend,' Volkhvy said, 'is in the Summer Country?'

'Vivienne and I separated - she to speak to those in the southlands, where we detected some traces of civilisation...'

The Grey Wolf snorted, and scratched his nose. 'Heh. Then the Queen of Winter and her lap-dog will have her.' The wolf fixed Taliesin with a piercing stare. 'Beware those who bear the mark of the sleepers, Singer of Songs. And have a care too for the perfidies of female kind.'

Phoenix smiled. 'Maybe I should take care of him, then, Old One?' Taliesin bowed his head, a carefully studied gesture, Phoenix saw. He left the haven of the fire, and stood for a while alone, on the edge of their small camp, staring at the mountains. Volkhvy and the wolf, seasoned travellers of the tundra, ignored him and curled around themselves to sleep. Phoenix, less inclined to such rest, grabbed a srela-fur blanket and wandered over with feigned casualness to the solitary man.

'You are far from home and friends,' Phoenix whispered. 'But I am sure, when our business here is done, the Elders will see you to your quest.'

Phoenix began to place the blanket over his shoulders, but he instead placed it around Phoenix's shoulders. 'I do not feel the cold so much.' His eyes, even in the darkness, Phoenix felt hold hir own. 'Why _are_ you here?'

An owl glided overhead on soft wings, visible against the night sky, white on black. Phoenix shivered at the ill omen. 'For the choosing.' At his puzzled look, Phoenix continued. 'Every generation, one is Chosen from the tribes - the Great Serpent will take those found at the Place of Choosing, and if worthy, they vanish, never to be seen again. It is an honour...'

'A sacrifice,' he said, bluntly. 

'It is destiny. None may evade their fate.'

'No fate is irrevocable,' he said, softly. Phoenix could almost feel that he _wanted_ this to be true. Strange man, chasing strange beings to prevent - what? He didn't even know, just followed a riddling message to this place, in search of solutions to questions he didn't even know to ask.

And the questions he did ask led to places Phoenix could not allow him to follow. How to tell him what it was like to be forever the outsider, neither one thing nor another? That maybe in the Choosing there would be a place, or at least, finally, peace.

Instead, Phoenix walked back to the fire, and knelt beside it. Sensing, rather than seeing the bard do likewise. And for a long time, there was silence.

'Can you tell me of the Queen of Winter?' Taliesin asked, softly, eventually. Phoenix placed another chip on the fire and smiled at him. Really, he was rather pretty...

'What would you know?' Phoenix asked, moving to sit beside him. It being a cold night, Phoenix huddled closer to him. He shifted slightly to make room closer to the fire, but did not pull away. 'Would you have me tell of how the mighty sorcerer Kastchei Bes-mertney was born from the egg of a fiery serpent? Of how the Queen of Winter, Alianora Marevna used her arts to ensnare him? I could tell of how Kastchei the Undying challenged the Master of the Hunt in combat, and became Lord of the Summer Country. Ask, and of what I know, hide nothing I will...'

'Tell me,' he asked, staring into Phoenix's eyes. Phoenix blushed, glad that the nearness of the fire would hide it. So, not so naive as thought, then? Phoenix took refuge in the cadence of the tale.

'On the further side of the highest mountains, beyond the forests of ice...' Phoenix began. Taliesin leaned closer, drinking in every word.

~~~

The snows had already covered the dromond in a deep drift. If not for the uncanny tracking abilities of Kastchei's two lymers, they might have ridden straight past it, taking it for another rise in the landscape, that already undulated like a still white sea. Vivienne stared at the twenty foot high drift in dismay, however.

'Should we come back with men and tools?' she asked. Kastchei dismounted, landing so lightly in the snow he left only the slightest trace. He walked to stand in front of the drift, where the larger of the two hounds sniffed and pawed at the snow, before looking up at her master and whining. He ignored the hound, and stretched out his hand.

'There is no need of labour. Winter may still reign, but Summer magics do not fade completely.' She watched as his took a deep breath, the only outward sign of concentration. As he let it out slowly, the snow and ice covering the ship simply melted away, forming a short lived rill that made its way past her feet, and down the larger valley, steaming slightly in the chill air. Where there had been a large drift, the dromond now squatted as they had left it, a big fat bug crouched on ungainly limbs above the frozen ground. Kastchei circled the hollow in which it lay warily.

'Incredible. You say this device is space-capable?'

'Like your hounds and cybrorses, dromonds are mostly organic. I sat through a lecture once on how they can directly manipulate dynamic-field lattices to move between worlds, but don't ask me to explain it - I'm no tech-mage.' Vivienne joined him and then jumped down beside the hatch of the craft. 'I just fly the damn thing.' Her hand traced the rune of opening beside the hatch, and it open slowly, revealing a valve-like structure, currently closed. 'Vivienne of Caer Tagel,' she said sharply. The valve opened, revealing the inner workings of the vessel. 'I'd really prefer to do this alone, if you don't mind?' she asked. Kastchei nodded absently.

'I'll take a look around outside, my dear. If there's any sign of your friend, perhaps the hounds will find it.'

Not wholly believing him, Vivienne ducked inside the vessel, and headed for the control room. The familiar corridor of the ship curved above her head claustrophobically, dead to the touch, instead of humming with life. Her hand left resting on the wall did eventually detect the vessel's pulse, but it was faint. The cybrid was almost completely dormant. She found the same problem in the control room - the sensor arrays and instruments told her nothing. A quick investigation of the cybridised grafts soon found the reason. She struggled out from under the flight controls and looked around the room. The comlink was destroyed, so she had no way of reaching Tal. Worse than that, however, was the damage to the dromond's systems: both the propulsion systems - flight and interstellar - were damaged, and would require cauldron-grown replacements. They were trapped on this world.

But by whom…? Kastchei? Alia? She couldn't tell if the damage was recent, or had been done... She thought of the sudden systems malfunction Tal had reported from the 'thopter, before she'd lost contact. _Someone back home? A traitor?_ Had the Calaitin been aware that they were being followed after all?

'Night comes on swift wings, Vivienne, and the storm follows. We must leave.' 

Kastchei's voice: deep, husky yet melodic, and holding a genuine concern. She looked up from her study of the broken flight console, and wiped the sticky ichor of its trailing innards off her hands. He was standing behind her, in the doorway of the cockpit.

His gaze held an unbridled curiosity as he stared. 'Come. Not even I can protect you from all of Winter's Night.' His hand was extended, the only brightness in the gathering gloom his pristine white shirt sleeve. With only a slight hesitation she followed him from the craft. She shivered in the sudden gust of cold air - sheltered in the wreckage, she had not felt the full force of Winter. Kastchei threw his coat around her shoulders and drew her close. 'Follow me, the horses are not far. If the storm holds off for just a short while, we can reach one of my hunting lodges before it strikes.' 

~~~

The Queen of Winter glided through the halls of the Summer Palace as if it were her own. Truth be told, she regards it as such - for was it not she who placed this current Lord of Summer in his place?

Alianora had a room, within the sprawl of the summer court: at the top of the eastern tower, overlooking the foothills of the mountains. It was here that she made her way, ignoring the servants who scurried along the labyrinthine corridors. It had been her room for centuries, and she held the only key.

The door opened easily, and she entered, careful to lock the door behind her. This was after all, _her_ place. Not even Kastchei could intrude here.

Especially, she thought, Kastchei.

Ignoring the room's contents, she picked her way to the window, and opened the shutters. Sunlight glinted off the coiled jade eye of the serpent on her wrist, and she toyed with the bracelet idly, staring into the distance. If she'd cared to, she could have used a spell to locate and see Kastchei and the woman.

__

He grows rebellious, she thought. _A hound kept too long on the leash._

Outside the influence of the spell-warmed gardens of the palace, her eyes could see the green shoots of new life peeking through the snow.

Summer was coming, finally. 

__

His power will grow, whispered the inner voice. _What needs to be done must be done soon._

Soon... She looked around the small room, and bit her lip in nervous anticipation. _It must be soon..._

Her gaze lingered on the window for a long time, as she stared out onto her realm, lost in thought. Making her decision, she strode briskly to the casement, and flung it open. 'Show me the Master of the Hunt,' she commanded the winds. 

Snow whirled and tumbled in front of her, the random flurries beginning to form a recognisable image. She stared into the dancing flakes of snow, a look of irritation marring her normally impassive features.

~~~

It seemed to Vivienne that the snowstorm grew in intensity as they entered the forest. The snow whipped around her face, lashing her skin with pinpricks of ice. She drew her hand away once expecting to see blood on her gloved fingers. But there was only the fast-melting ice, dripping from the leather. Kastchei, like his hounds, and the cybrorses they both rode, didn't seem to feel the force of the storm at all. He sent her inside the welcome walls of the lodge, whilst he tended the beasts. Grateful for the respite, she didn't argue, and knelt in front of the fire, which looked as though it had burned all day, so warm was the room. It burned more brightly as Kastchei entered, bringing a flurry of snow over the threshold with him, before he could shut the door, closing out the howling winter, and the ever-gathering darkness. The shadows were banished to the corners of the room as he approached, the lights on the wall brightening as a casual gesture of his black-gloved hand waved them to life. The two hounds padded at his feet, claws click-clacking on the wooden floor, before they settled full length in front of the fire, their red eyes glinting almost malevolently in the firelight.

Vivienne unclasped her cloak and draped the heavy fabric over the back of a chair. Water dripped from the slick fabric, pooling on the floor. A shutter banged from somewhere in the lodge, startling her, and she jumped, only to find Kastchei's arms around her. Despite the atrocious weather he'd just ridden through, he was perfectly dry. As she opened her mouth to protest at his embrace, he tightened his grip, and placed a finger lightly on her lips, before bending down and kissing her. 

She struggled, alarmed, but her slight frame was no match for the sorcerer's strength. And yet somehow part of her didn't _want_ to fight him...

**__**

We are watched. Indulge me.

Like a bucket of cold water thrown over her, the shock of the sudden mental contact was enough to pull her senses back from the precipice. She pulled away slightly, until she could see his face. Those bright green eyes held amusement, but no passion. His finger touched his own lips, once again cautioning silence, before reaching out to brush the fabric of her shirt, and trace the length of her throat, her cheek. He pulled her closer again, and this time she allowed the contact, melting into him until his mouth rested next to her ear. 'Will you trust me?'

It wasn't the question she'd been expecting, and one she didn't know how to answer, even as he kissed her again and she twined her arms around his neck, burying her fingers in his dark hair. 

****


	2. The Capture of the Firebird

****

Firebird

By Helen Fayle

Two: The Capture of the Firebird

Phoenix shivered as the wind howled, blowing gusts of sharp ice crystals onto exposed skin. Small icicles formed on the fur trim of the groups' thick furs, and even the Grey Wolf's muzzle was rimmed with hoar-frost.

Taliesin seemed not to mind the cold. Stronger for his rest, and Volkhvy's potions, he took his turn pulling the sled, talking alternatively with the shaman and the wolf. Unhooded, his red hair was whipped around his face by the wind, and he was constantly having to push it out of his eyes.

And so it was Phoenix, sharp eyed, who saw first that they had reached their journey's end: a darkness upon the white snow, with only a tall, bone-white stake in the middle to mark the spot.

The place of Choosing.

Phoenix had not even been aware of stopping, until the bard's hand brushed hir own.

'Do you have to do this?' he asked. Phoenix stared into his eyes, pale green, and yet so piercing, that stared into the soul. His beard was untouched by the frost.

'What is written, is written.' Phoenix stared at the post, at the chains that huddled at its base. 

Something shattered underfoot, and Phoenix bent down. Standing, hir hand held the remains of a bone, human, ancient, and splintered by the teeth of something large. 

'Not all need die,' Phoenix whispered softly. Taliesin's grip on hir arm tightened.

'No.'

He believed it even less. It was written in the depths of those amazing eyes. On a whim, Phoenix leaned forward and kissed him, lightly. Expecting him to pull away.

He didn't. Instead, it was Phoenix who pulled away. Around them, the storm picked up in strength, the howling of the winds drowning out the warning howl of the Grey Wolf, stood at the top of the hill, head thrown back in challenge to the night sky, and whatever may come of it.

Challenge - or summons? Over and above the fury of the Winter storm, another sound could be heard - the baying of a vast pack of hounds? Or the bellowing note of the dragon? Phoenix shivered, and let Taliesin pull hir closer. _The Hunt would not come so far, surely? _Phoenix turned dark eyes to the sky, staring into the wind and snow, wondering what form destiny would take. For now, it was the wind, and the shamanka, come to take her. Perhaps, Phoenix thought, if the choosing were true, there might finally be a place to belong.

~~~

'So when exactly did Alia stop spying on us?' Vivienne asked, much later. Kastchei's hand traced the line of her neck, over her throat, down to cover one small breast. He leaned over her, smiling with ill-concealed amusement.

'Am I so obvious?' he asked. She moved his hand.

'Frankly, yes.' 

He leaned down and kissed her briefly, before staring at her - an un-nerving gaze, she thought, not for the first time. His green eyes held an almost inhuman glitter. 'Ah,' was all he said. She had the distinct impression he was waiting for her to say something. Perhaps to rail against his deception? He lay next to her, so still, he might have been a statue. A perfect, flesh-coloured statue. And always, always, that slight smile of amusement not quite hidden by the beard. He could outwait her, and sooner or later he would have the truth from her. Whether she could trust him or not was another matter.

She didn't trust Alianora. Tal was missing, and she was far from home, in strange territory.

'You have come here at an awkward time, Vivienne,' he said eventually. 'Summer comes, and with it a change in the balance of power for the first time in over one hundred years. Things are... delicate.'

'That,' Vivienne said a little more sharply than she intended, 'sounds like am monumental understatement.' 

'True enough. But now you come, bringing news that the Alliance is reformed, under a new high king. And then, there is the little matter of this threat to your worlds that you seek. Which you refused to discuss last night. Why?'

'I had my reasons,' she said abruptly. She took a deep breath, and made a choice. 'I think Alianora already knew what it was.' She met his eyes, those unnatural green eyes, and waited. If she _had_ misjudged him, this was the moment she would know.

In the firelight, his hair looked like fire. Under the trimmed beard, his full lips compressed to a cruel line. 

'You play a dangerous game with very little knowledge of the pieces,' he told her bluntly. 'Foolish.' He smiled. 'How do you know Alia and I are not of an accord in this matter.'

'I think I can trust you.'

'You have already taken that chance, haven't you?' He reached up, and pulled her head closer, and kissed her again. 'As it happens, you're right, this time,' he said, when he finally released her. 'How did you know?'

She shrugged dismissively. 'Alia looked tense when I started to speak, as if she already knew what would be said. You seemed - genuinely disturbed - by what little I did say.'

He laughed. 'You based you judgement on that?'

'What's so funny?'

He shook his head. 'Later. For now, I want to know what you felt you could not tell Alia.'

'So much enmity, and yet, you are her Master of the Hunt...' Vivienne said softly, probing for a response. 

'As she, in turn is merely the Lady of the Lakes in the Summer. And such has always been the balance of power on Skazki, even when it was still Breceliande.'

Her intake of breath was not wholly due to his hand tracing the line of her thigh under the covers.

'You know more than you tell,' Kastchei told her, cold as Winter. 'No-one knows that name who does not know its history.'

Vivienne shook her head, and pushed the sudden fall of tangled chestnut curls out of her face. 'No. I simply didn't tell you all of the truth.'

'Your ship has been carefully sabotaged, the databanks are ruined, and the communications device is missing. So not only were you expected, but someone knew enough of the design to know precisely what to remove to stop you calling for help. That suggests someone not of Skazki.'

'Calaitin.'

One word, just that, but his demeanour changed immediately. 'I know the name. A long, long time ago. They weren't pleasant even then.'

'Cauldron-born, a gestalt clone. Their sorcery is very crude however. They make up for it with an uncanny telepathy, and a complete disregard for their individual lives.' She chewed her bottom lip. 'How do you know them? Breceliande has been lost from the Alliance for centuries.'

'And I've been around for far longer, and was not always the Master of the Hunt. What do they want on Skazki?'

Vivienne shrugged. 'I have no idea. Tal thought he had some clues, but we didn't know what they meant. They tried to open a gateway, on Gwynedd. It failed. We think they might be trying again here. But what to, and for what purpose...' she shook her head. 'They killed a dragon to establish the link to this place, Kastchei. A _dragon_, a baker's dozen of their own kind and some very large demonic spiders. No one takes that kind of risk for trivial concerns. Whatever it is they're after, it's got to be important, and unless I miss my guess, it's dangerous.'

'A pity your Taliesin isn't better versed in sorcery.' Kastchei said almost under his breath. 'No matter, I have resources of my own to draw upon.' He smiled down upon her. 'You might do well to think back to how someone knew where to find your dromond. The internal damage was recent...'

'Which means,' Vivienne said quietly, 'someone told them I was still alive. Which leaves you, or Alia. And Kastchei - it was you who found me. You knew where to find the ship...'

Kastchei's smile at that was coldly amused. 'And yet here you are, alone and in my power.' His hand again brushed her cheek, until he touched the throbbing artery in her throat. Then without warning his fingers grasped her neck. 'All alone...' he whispered. She caught his hand in her own, and lifted it from her neck. He made no attempt to prevent her, just simply removed it from her grasp and instead traced the line of her arm.

'You don't frighten me that easily, Kastchei,' Vivienne told him. He laughed.

'Really?' His hand moved back up to rest lightly on the throbbing artery in her neck. 'So your heart beats faster with excitement, then?'

'In your dreams,' she replied tartly, without thinking. She caught her breath as he pushed her back underneath him.

'You'd be surprised what my dreams hold, Vivienne.' He kissed her, and pulled away the sheet that lay trapped between them. She pushed him away slightly, and stared into his disturbing green eyes.

'Do you dream, really?' she asked, realising that again the situation was spiralling out of her control.

'Not for a very long time,' was his only reply.

~~~

__

'The hour comes...' was all Volkhvy said. She'd pushed back the verrin-fur lined hood of her parka to reveal her lined face, surrounded by a wispy cloud of unruly iron-grey hair. She stared past Phoenix, and her piercing gaze, as deep as any raven's, met Taliesin's eyes, as if daring him to intervene.

He released Phoenix to the shamanka's wizened grasp, and said nothing. He knew the ancient formulae: those words had been his to hear, once, long ago. 

Three days and nights, that had felt like an eternity, bound and hung from the boughs of the World Ash, while the dragon... the dragon that some said slumbered _around_ the roots of Yggdrasil… the dragon that _was_ the World Tree… the dragon came, awakened, tested, and found him acceptable.

He'd won _Leannan_ for his pains. _Leannan_ and the first stumbling footsteps on the path that had led him here. _Leannan_, and the scars that only Vivienne and Elphin had ever seen (and the scars _inside_ that no-one ever would…)

Phoenix's eyes held a sudden terror, despite hir earlier bravado. And Taliesin, of all them here, knew that feeling. 

A dragon was coming… if the time was right. He lifted _Leannan_ from her case, and placed her upon his lap. Phoenix's eyes never left his as Volkhvy tied the slim hermaphrodite to the stake. He mouthed "courage", and saw Phoenix nod slightly. Not enough, he knew, mere words. And so he did what only he could do in this time, and this place. He tuned _Leannan's_ strings as best he could in the cold, and began to play.

The Grey Wolf sat at Taliesin's feet and scratched behind one ear, before saying: 'For a bard, thy music does not offer much soothing to the savage beast.'

'Everyone's a critic,' Taliesin replied mildly. Cold fingers slipped on the strings, fumbling the note, and he winced. 'Justified in this weather, perhaps.'

The Wolf sneezed. 'Do not think of rescue, young bard. There are some things that should not be meddled with.'

'I know.' He re-tuned an overly tight string and played on. 'I know what the dragons are. If one _is_ coming, if she's the one I think she is, I want to talk to her, that's all. The girl - boy -' he sighed. 'Phoenix. Shouldn't be in any real danger, despite the superstitious trappings of this ceremony.'

The Grey Wolf flopped to the ground, and laid his head on his paws so that his eyes could stare at the bard. 'You take a great deal on faith, harper. You think the child will be safe, but you see the bones that litter this place.' He sniffed disdainfully. 'I have cuffed cubs who make less of a mess than this in the den, but that is by-the-by. Not all are chosen.'

'Because the Dragon does not always come. Only when she needs to.' Tal said. 'For company.'

The Grey Wolf licked his left paw and drew it over one ear. 'Hah. So you do see clearly. Sit and wait, then, and play on. I will wait with you. But it seems we two will wait alone'

Taliesin saw the shamanka, some distance away, taking hold of the straps of the sled and tugging, taking her leave. 'Then the Dragon is our only way from this place, now?'

Volkhvy, her task completed, did not even look back.

'It looks that way, harper, does it not?'

Taliesin looked sharply at the wolf, expecting it to be laughing at him. But the animal was busy washing, ostentatiously ignoring him.

'You are no comfort, Grey Wolf,' Taliesin told him.

'I am a wolf,' said the Grey Wolf. 'Be thankful I do not offer you the comfort of my belly.'

Taliesin bent his head over _Leannan_ again, feeling for the strings. Even he now felt the extreme cold, and he fumbled the next two notes. Finally he gave up the attempt, and placed _Leannan_ back in her case, making sure she was well wrapped.

He wondered how Vivienne fared, to the south. If only the comlink hadn't broken in his crash... But might-have-beens were not to be fretted over. Whatever Vivienne's plight, he could do nothing from here. And here, there were problems of his own.

How to get back to Vivienne only one of them, if not the least.

~~~

Kastchei, dressed again in white, sat in a large armchair in front of the fire, staring into the fading flames, his hands steepled in front of him, fingers resting lightly on his bearded chin. Vivienne sat opposite, in a chair large enough for her small body to curl up in, and against the chill, she was doing just that, tucking her toes under her, since her boots were still drying by the door.

Neither of them spoke for a very long time.

The fire had almost died to embers, just before dawn, and Kastchei, with a negligent wave of his hand, conjured the flames back to full strength. Grateful for the extra heat, Vivienne stretched her hands out towards the blaze.

'I sometimes feel I have grown too complacent,' Kastchei said eventually. At the sound of his voice, one of his hounds lifted its head and its huge whiplike tail pounded the floor. The cybrid beast whined deep in its throat, and Kastchei clicked his fingers. The hound rose up and sat at his master's feet, letting his shoulder be slapped affectionately. Almost like a domestic dog and his master, Vivienne thought briefly.

Except that this was a cybridised hell-hound that could run for days, with artificial bio-tech eyes and ears and other senses. A perfect killing machine, hound of the hell-pack of the Wild Hunt.

And his master was Lord of that Hunt. No coincidences now, she knew. This was Breceliande, which made him no pretender to the title; no pale copy such as was to be found on worlds who kept to the old ways, but the real McCoy. Lord of the Summer Country, Master of the Wild Hunt. Hell's Huntsman.

Who sat now with his feet up in front of a roaring log fire in a hunting lodge, toasting his toes just like any ordinary man.

Well, she amended mentally, even before this she'd not thought of him as _ordinary_ - he was after all, dragon-born, and she'd yet to meet a single one of the breed who wasn't dangerous...

No. That wasn't it. She'd thought him arrogant, charming, powerful, all too used to getting his own way, but sorcery alone doesn't give a man (or woman) that aura of danger. She rubbed her neck, wishing she could pin down exactly what bothered her so much about the man. And why he seemed so strangely familiar.

'Does it worry you?' she asked eventually. 'That you've been caught napping, I mean.' 

He shrugged. 'Summer comes, and that brings its own problems. This time...' He looked thoughtful. 'I sense that there are more changes to come with Summer this time. Not all of them for the better.'

'And Alia?'

'Aleschka has always been ambitious. Why else do you think she married me?'

'You mean it wasn't your charm, seductively handsome good looks and wit?' Vivienne quipped.

'She has pets a-plenty for that, 'Nina and uses them. When she found me, we each had talents the other needed. Now, perhaps we are not so dependent.'

'That's cold, for saying you've been married to the woman for over a hundred years.'

'Closer to a hundred and fifty. And cold - what do you expect from the Queen of Winter and a man who is said to have no soul?' He stood up, displacing the hound, and walked over to her, to kneel at her feet. 'You wondered earlier why I found it amusing that you judged me by my responses? Feel.'

He bared his chest, pulling the white fabric away to reveal a smoothly muscled torso. Lean, hard muscle, built up by a lifetime of physical labour, not for show.

She laid her hand on his chest, feeling the skin twitch under her touch.

'I think we've already discovered how impressive I find you,' she began. His mouth twitched into a slight lopsided smile, but quickly sobered.

'No time for levity now, 'Nina.'

'I don't know what I'm looking for,' she told him.

'Then perhaps this-' and he took her hand and placed it around his wrist, placing her fingers over the place at the base of his palm where the veins stood out, blue against the paler skin.

Understanding, then, and realising that she should have realised earlier, but had perhaps not paid attention.

No pulse. No heartbeat.

With his free hand he took his dagger from its belt sheath, and placed it point first against his chest, the point resting between two ribs, at a point where his heart should lie.

'Bess-Mertny, they called me, years ago, when they first found out that I could not be killed,' he said softly. 'The Undying. A fine reputation to have, in a world of sorcerers who vie with each other for power, as they did then. But I was new, and naive, and too sure of my own ability to control this world. And even if a man cannot be killed, there are worse fates.'

He drove the blade into his body, halfway to the hilt. Vivienne let out a startled cry, and reached for it, but he held her hand away, and pulled it from his body, slowly. The wound healed as the blade left it, leaving no scar, no trace of blood. 'I was betrayed, and left for dead, with wounds that took lifetimes to heal, even for me. And when I returned to full health, the world had changed. There were no longer any great cities, just small outposts of survivors, braving the great ice ages as best they could as the glaciers advanced and retreated. Their cities buried under sheets of ice and ground to dust. I wandered for years, making a poor living, before Alia searched out the legend of the mad sorcerer who could not die, and found instead a saner, wiser and less ambitious fool. I agreed to help her, and the rest, as they say, is legend.' He turned away from Vivienne, and stared out of the window. 'I am a dead man walking, Vivienne. Inhabiting a dragon-spawned construct, that can never do more than approximate life. Oh, it eats, it sleeps, hungers, thirsts... even feels...

We are the fools of time and terror: Days

Steal on us, and steal from us; yet we live,

Loathing our life, and dreading still to die...'

He broke off abruptly. 'Daybreak, Nina, and the storm has lifted. We had best return to the palace. I think we both need a little talk with my wife, don't you?' He stood up and began clearing the room, putting on his boots and coat. Vivienne did the same, after putting out the fire in the hearth.

'How can a man from a universe where Byron never existed quote _Manfred_?' she asked suddenly. It wasn't the question she'd meant to ask, and she cursed herself silently. She'd let him rattle her on too many occasions in the last few hours, she thought. 'Who are you?'

'I am who I have always been, more or less' he told her. 'Can you say the same?'

He smiled and swept out of the door, a flurry of snow marking his path as he cleared it from his way with a gesture. She followed slowly, wishing she had even an inkling of why he'd sidestepped both questions, realising belated that the answer to one would very likely give her the answer to the other, and wondering if she really wanted the answer.

__

~~~

She was alone now, as she had been so many times over the years. Her companions lasted for so little time, in the scheme of things.

But there was a place, where she might find another to share her loneliness, and she turned her course to that place, turning from the cold and dark on the depths of the void, to the density, warmth and relative safety of the shallows.

She mourned them all, in their time. But life continued, and so did she, in one form or another (and there had been several). Not that all those who had left her did so at the end of their lives - some chose to leave, finding meaning in places far removed from their origin (and she had travelled far, once, in her youth, before she'd been so brutally crippled). Others preferred to return home, after travelling for only a short time (but everyone makes mistakes, and she is, at the end of it all, as fallible as any other intelligence, regardless of her origins.)

There were more of her kind once: free or bound, the void had once been full with their song, vibrating and resounding with the power of their passing through its totality, a part of it in ways no other minds could ever know.

All gone now: all but a few, and she not the least of them, although much diminished from what she might have been.

The place approaches, and she prepares to make herself a part of it, shapes a form suitable for the interface. A task much harder now than in years past.

Shapes, so much a part of the shallows, are not something she feels defined by, but she does, however have one motif that has remained no matter what else may change.

Blue was always her colour

~~~

Alianora walked the labyrinthine gardens, and brooded silently. She hadn't watched, past the point where she'd seen the woman - Vivienne - yield to Kastya's advances. A nagging feeling at the back of her mind had been telling her that perhaps this had been a mistake for several hours since.

She resisted the temptation to check again. Vivienne of Gwynedd was a nobody, a pretty little doll of a woman - she'd seen her type before. The dangerous one of the pair was the bard, and he was lost, somewhere in the highlands. If he survived at all.

What _did_ Kastya see in her? She was petite, fragile, quiet. She had no power of her own.

She'd been assured of _that_.

She walked the grassy lemniscate in silence, walking the well-trimmed pattern with a light tread. Kastchei had laid the gardens out, years ago, when he had first taken over the role of Master of the Hunt. What powers the triskellion design might have had, she didn't know, except for one: walking it was oddly soothing, and she needed that peace of mind for what she had planned. For what she needed to do later.

She stepped from the path, feeling calmer, and took the path that led to the stableyard and the kennels. _Let Kastya have the girl, for what little time he had left. Without his protection and without her lover, she would be powerless and easily disposed of._

The night was clear, no cloud to obscure the sky. Hardly surprising, Tal thought, drawing his coat closer to ward off the chill. The bulk of the planet's water was locked up in the ice the covered all of the major landmasses. Later in the planet's erratic orbit around its primary, it would be a different story, as the ice retreated with the coming years of Summer.

A summer that was still a long way off, and musing about it did nothing for numb fingers and ears. He glanced down to the supine figure of the Grey Wolf, stretched across his feet, head resting on his front paws: a ghost shape lit only by starlight and moonlight.

One ear twitched as he stared, and Tal smiled, knowing he was watched. In turn, he watched, and waited. Watched Phoenix, alone and helpless in the frigid night, awaiting whatever fate may bring. Waited, and debated taking the child down from that lonely place of death. Debated, and held back, remembering another place of sacrifice, not really all that long ago, awaiting a dragon's call.

You record, you tell, you make people _remember_, he told himself. A teller of tales, a singer of the Song. Not a hero. Not this time. He'd learned that lesson upon Yggdrasil's hallowed boughs.

He waited, watching the stars wheel overhead. The night was not silent, despite the intense cold. An ermine coated fox strolled across his field of vision once, giving a barking cough and jumping back into shadow as he shifted uncomfortably on the rock he'd used as a seat. The still night air carried sounds a great distance: on soft wings, an owl flew overhead and seconds later he heard the tiny, quickly cut off squeak of its prey. He wondered idly what would happen if the mice ever learned to bite back.

And in the hours before dawn, when the stars were setting, he heard something else. A long, distant howling, a single voice taken up and carried, becoming a chorus of baying hounds, calling the scent found.

The sound of paws, sharp claws clattering as they hit stone as they ran.

And the unmistakable sound of a galloping horse, over and above them all.

__

Breceliande...

'Damn.' He stood up, throwing his coat down so that he could move faster, and ran towards Phoenix, still standing - or rather, now slumped, against the post. Behind him, the Grey Wolf shook himself awake, and raised his head to the skies, howling out his own challenge to the pack that now approached.

He knew what he would see, even before they were upon him: white ghost hounds, huge mastiffs cybridised and bred for centuries for the hunt. The Wild Hunt of the Forests of Breceliande, called by the Wild Huntsman, at the order of one of two things: transgression of the Laws of Breceliande - or the whim of the Queen of Winter.

The hounds were white, and huge - they would be waist high to even Elphin of Gwnydd - red eyed, red eared, and fresh come to the hunt. The horse was white also, and red-eyed. The rider was swathed in a white srela-fur cloak, and hidden from view.

But whoever it was bore the horn of the hunter, and the head...

...the head, when the wind blew back the whirling fabric of the cloak, was the skull and horns of a Black Hart, the face hidden by a mask of owl-feathers, that left two large circles where the eyes should be.

Tal was weaponless, but he sang, using the Voice to keep the hounds at bay. At his feet, the Grey Wolf, snapping and snarling at any beast that dared to come close.

Too many, too fast: he needed to sing a new song for each, and he could not keep pace with the attack. Dimly, he heard Phoenix cry out in pain, and he tried to throw off the hound that had a hold of him, but slipped, and failed. He went down in the deep snow, the hound snapping at his face, its breath making him gag with the stench of rotting meat.

And between and underneath the sounds of the struggle, another sound began, on the very edge of perception. It began as a soft whisper, a change in the note of the wind. It expanded, filling the air with its own song, harsh and cacophonous, that seemed to tear the night apart.

Part of him knew that sound and welcomed it, as an old friend. Another part shrank from it, fearing what it might portend.

What he didn't recognise was the small, fair haired woman who walked out of the night and the noise of the universe tearing itself into a place it had no right to be, who stood defiantly in front of the mounted hunter, and folded her arms.

~~~

The kennels were strangely deserted when they returned to the palace. Kastchei handed Voronushka to the groom who came out to meet him, and looked around with a frown.

'Most peculiar,' he said.

Vivienne dismounted, sliding down the cybrorse's sleek sides to land awkwardly on the stone floor of the yard. Kastchei's two hounds kept close to their master's side, strangely silent.

'The dogs are gone?'

'Hounds,' he corrected absently. He grabbed the nearest groom, about to take the reins of Vivienne's steed from her. 'Where are my pack?' he asked.

'Master - the Lady Alianora took them, several hours ago.'

Kastchei let the boy go, and he led Vivienne's mount away with evident relief.

'During the height of the storm?' Vivienne suggested. 'But why?' Kastchei was already setting off for the palace at a run. 'Hey!' she called out. 'Wait for me!'

'Keep up,' was his only reply. Muttering something under her breath about all men being alike, she followed. 

A search of Alia's apartments drew a blank. An hour or so later, Vivienne perched on the edge of the enormous four poster bed, and stared at the tangled heap of clothing that was piled up on the bed, the floor, and every available flat space. One of the hounds was settling on top of one particularly deep pile of furs, turning round and round several times before settling down with a grunt.

Kastchei threw a jewelled mirror across the room, and Vivienne winced as it smashed against the wall, crystal shards falling gently to land in the fur rug.

'You don't know…' Vivienne began.

'My mask and robes gone, my hounds, and Sivushka no longer in his stable?' He slammed his fist into the wall. 'Oh, I know. Believe me, I know all too well what she has done. What I do not understand is _why_.'

The last word held a note of desperation, rather than anger. She wisely kept quiet, letting him calm himself.

'She rides as Master of the Hunt - _my_ hunt. And I know not where, or for what purpose. And there is nothing - _nothing_ - in any place to tell me.' He said eventually.

'Is there something else you could do? Scry for her?'

He shook his head. 'She's always well warded, it wouldn't work.'

'She may be,' Vivienne said quietly. 'Is the pack? Or the horse?'

He looked at her strangely, as if suddenly waking up from a stupor. 'Of course! Vivienne, you're brilliant, my dear!' 

~~~

'Stand aside,' the masked figure called out to the woman in blue. A woman's voice, Tal noted, although heavily disguised. The other just shook her head.

'No.' she said simply.

If he'd had doubts as to her identity before, he had none now. The woman's voice rang with the Song, pure and true. The voice of the Universe made manifest. Dragon. Like Delbâeth, taking human form.

'Ah.' The mounted figure relaxed in the saddle, and the white horse shifted its weight. _So… _'Well then, Child of Time, it is you I have come for.'

'Then let these others go.'

'I think not.' She gestured, and the hounds resumed their attack. He heard, as the nearest hound sprang, a shout, followed by the sound that he could only describe as breaking glass, drawn out over an eternity. Tal, buried under a considerable weight of fur and muscle, saw a web of light descend over the area, enveloping the Dragon and Phoenix. He thought the serpent bracelet the masked horsewoman wore shone briefly with the same light.

After that, there was only silence. Horned woman, dragon, hounds - were gone. Phoenix was slumped against the stake, head bowed. Taliesin, battered and bloodied, and a battle-torn Grey Wolf, stood over the body of one dead hound, facing of against one barely alive that tried to stand, whimpering, only to fall over its own trailing intestines. The Grey Wolf limped over and with one lunge with his jaws, tore the creature's throat out, putting it out of its misery. Taliesin was left to pull himself out from underneath his own attacker. He rushed to the centre of the circle, and untied the unconscious Phoenix, lowering the child's slight body to the ground.

'Who in the name of the gods was _that?_' Tal asked, once he had his breath back. One of the hounds must have reached Phoenix, who was bleeding profusely from a bite on the arm. Ignoring the cold, he stripped off the coat and made an attempt to bind the wound with the remains of his shirt sleeve.

'That, my young friend, was the Wild Hunt, or a part of it. But that was not the Master.'

'Then who was it?'

The wolf looked up from licking his own wounds, the worst a deep gash on one flank. 'I would guess, Alianora Marevna, Lady of the Lakes, Queen of Winter.'

'And I suppose my next question is - why?'

The wolf carried on licking the injury. 'That, I cannot answer. Except she wanted the dragon, and somehow, she trapped her.'

Tal stared at the now empty circle where Phoenix had stood. 'I cannot let her hold the dragon. What now?'

'Rest, food, water and healing,' the Grey Wolf said. 'But I doubt from the look in your eyes that this is what you have in mind, harper.' The wolf sighed. 'To combat such magic, you need magic. And to follow the Queen to her home in time you will need one of the forty great steeds kept by the Mistress of the Forest herself. And since you wouldn't last half a day out here by yourself, let alone be able to find your way through Kingdoms of Darkness and Light, and then through the Great Forest of Ice to the home of the Baba Yaga, it seems I must raise my poor battered body from its deathbed and aid thee.'

'I'm not twisting your tail,' Tal said dryly. The wolf just _looked_ at him.

'We each have our destiny, harper. I am a guide. This has always been my calling. Now.' He stood up gingerly, and then stretched.

And stretched, and lengthened, and grew taller before Taliesin's eyes, until he stood the height of a large pony.

'Since we will not make our journey on foot, needs must you must ride, and I be a beast of burden.'

Tal picked up _Leannan's_ case from where it lay, placed Phoenix on the Grey Wolf's back, and carefully mounted the now huge wolf, careful to avoid the worst injuries. He cradled Phoenix carefully.

'And now?' he asked.

The wolf turned his great head towards him, tongue lolling. 'Now, you hold on very tightly, harper. Even hurt I can outrun the wind if needs be!'

And with that, he set off at a ground-eating lope, Taliesin clinging to his harp, Phoenix, and the wolf's ruff, as if his life depended upon it.

~~~  


Kastchei's workroom was not quite what Vivienne expected. Most sorcerers she'd met were untidy men, prone to leaving alchemical glassware, gas burners and chemicals in untidy clutter around their workspace, with ancient scuffed chalk markings marring flagstone floors, and dusty stuffed creatures hung from walls and ceilings like trophies of great deeds of valour.

She'd begun to think that dead crocodilians came with the glassware - a special promotional offer - buy two retorts, get one stuffed alligator.

Kastchei's rooms were immaculate. No trace of dust on any surface, no trailing cables, no bubbling alembics, no noxious smells coming from overflowing pouches of powders - and best of all, no dead reptiles.

He wasn't one for long flowing robes either, she noticed. He just pushed his sleeves up, removed his gloves, and set about preparing a silver bowl, which he filled with water.

'You're using the Mirror of Urd?' she asked.

'Similar,' he grunted back. 'Fewer fripperies to get in the way. Magic is mostly a matter of the will - focus, and pattern. I never understood why some sorcerers prefer to cloud their spells with unnecessary embellishments. It makes it harder to focus, not easier. The simpler the pattern…' he waved his hand over the still rippling surface of the water, 'the better the result. Hah!' he bent over the bowl, careful not to disturb the surface. 'Would your Taliesin be a skinny fellow with long red hair and a bushy beard?'

'Slim, yes. Sounds as though he hasn't trimmed the beard for a while,' she quipped. She leaned closer, only to be waved away.

'Stay back - simple doesn't mean less dangerous.'

Pouting, she obeyed, if reluctantly. 'Is he all right? What's he doing?'

'Apart from wrestling one of my hounds, and losing, he looks healthy enough.' He leaned closer to the surface of the water, which was now steaming slightly, a look of puzzlement on his face. 'Alia, what _are_ you doing…'

He pitched over so suddenly, Vivienne didn't have time to react. One moment he was standing over the bowl, which was now glowing even in the well-lit room, the next, he'd tumbled to the floor like a puppet whose strings had just been cut. His left hand caught the bowl as he fell, and sent the contents pouring over the table, to drip onto his unconscious form.

~~~

__

The room is dark, but that's no hindrance to her kind. Light, dark... all part of the whole. She can see well enough. What she cannot do is move from the place she has been chained to.

'You cannot escape.' 

She recognises the voice as that of the creature who had trapped her, as she was coming to claim her companion. A woman.

"Dragonborn". Wasn't that what they had called themselves, when they first came to this place? Most of them were long dead, bar a handful. One of them wielded the Hunt that had trapped her. But he... he would never have harmed her. How could he? They were linked. If she tried, she could still feel him, a part of her, deep inside, never freed. Just as a part of her remained with him.

She remembered. Hadn't she meant to put that right? So many things to remember.

She tried to pull free of her bonds. Failed. The woman laughed. 

'Try again, little dragon. What holds you fast cannot be broken by your kind, and no one knows you are here.'

She looks around, as best she can in the form she is trapped in. Human. Frail. But adequate.

Blue crystals, as blue as her eyes or the dress her body is clothed in. How apt.

'Why?' She hears sadness in her own voice, and wonders at it. Does she fear to die, at the hands of this one?

'Oh, I don't want you, as such.' The woman approaches, kneels in front of her, but out of reach, beyond the confining sigil and the burning crystals. 'I want what you have held in your keeping for so long, my dear.'

She knows, then, what her fate will be, and grieves. Yes. She should have put right that old mistake. She wishes also she'd had time to speak to the Other, the one she'd seen run to her rescue at the place of choosing. The one with such a familiar mind, yet so different. Did he know what he was?

Too late now.

'I won't let you take it,' she says, defiant to the last. Hasn't she fought foes more deadly than this woman, in her past? Even Lailoken had known better than to test her, in their encounters. Morgaine had tried to best her and failed. Even Kastchei, before...

The woman leaned closer, still safely outside the bounds of the dragon's prison, and smiled. Cold, As cold as the ice-lakes of Breceliande, so long ago. 'You cannot stop me,' she says. And with that, she leaves, slamming the door behind her. The immediate bonds fade, no longer needed. But the crystals remain, burning with a cold blue fire.

~~~

Vivienne was tending the still unconscious sorcerer when Alianora found them, some time later.

'He'll live, for now. Why waste your time?'

Vivienne looked up into Alianora's face as the red-haired woman crouched next to her. One slim, pale arm stretched towards Kastchei, and gently stroked the gash on his face, almost, but not quite healed. Only after she'd drawn her hand away did Vivienne see the re-opened wound, and blood upon the woman's fingernails. Seeing Vivienne's look, she shrugged, and calmly licked the blood off. 'He's still mine, for now, little girl. Never forget that.'

'You were with Taliesin, earlier - what did you do to him?' Vivienne stood, and drew herself up to her full height. It only worked, however, until Alia stood up. The other woman was taller than her, and only smiled in amusement at Vivienne's defiance.

'I? Nothing. Should I have?' She walked around the room, picking up items from the tables and benches, dropping them casually to the floor. A calculated careless destruction of order. 'Perhaps I should have brought him back - maybe I could have found out if he's a good a lover as he is a singer?' She pouted. 'After all, you had mine…' She dropped the glass retort she was holding. 'Too predictable, as ever, Kasya. Don't try to pretend you're still asleep.'

This last addressed to Kastchei, who levered himself up onto one elbow, and stared at her. Both of them ignored Vivienne, who felt suddenly like a blade of grass caught up in a hurricane, stood as she was between these two. Lord of Summer, Queen of Winter. The one power fading as the other grew. Neither, for now, at full strength.

Even so. Despite the silence in the room, the build up of power was tangible. Vivienne felt the hairs on her arms stand up, charged with the energy stretched taut between the two.

It snapped so suddenly, she almost fell over, only aware at that point that she'd been bracing herself against the silent storm. Kastchei, still weakened, was less fortunate. He fell back again, awkwardly. Alianora merely smiled, and held out her hand - the green serpent entwined around it glowing.

'You cannot best me, Kasya. Not now. You are not yet come into your power - and I - I have you finally where I want you.' She walked over to him, and lifted him by his hair to a kneeling position. 'On your knees.' Still holding his hair, she ran the serpent bracelet over his face, and he screamed.

'Stop it!' Vivienne cried. She rushed over, and tried to tackle Alia, who simply swatted her aside with a word.

'Why?' Alia held the bracelet to Kastchei's cheek. When she removed it, the cut on his face was healed - but had left a livid red scar. 'I have his soul in my keeping, and there is nothing - nothing - he can do to me now, is there, my love?' She kissed him, a parody of a lovers kiss, that he fought but could not evade. Vivienne could see the fury in his face, and shivered. She would not wish herself in Alianora's shoes should he free himself of her enchantments.

'Remember once, how you told me that the dragon held the key to your immortality?' Alia whispered, close to Kastchei's ear, but loudly enough for Vivienne to hear. 'How you trusted me with that knowledge, and with your name?'

'Foolish of me,' he remarked dryly. 'You were never _that_ good.'

She pulled away, eyes burning. 'Foolish, yes. But you pay for it soon, Kasya. I have your dragon, and through her, I will have your power. Unfortunately, getting it will kill you, but then, I would have had to find some way to be rid of you eventually.'

'Why?' Vivienne asked. 'What can you possibly hope to gain?'

'Power,' Kastchei rasped. 'Power to rule, both Summer and Winter.'

Alia threw her head back and laughed. 'Really, do you think my ambition that small? To rule this backward prison planet forever? No, Kastya. I have been shown a greater destiny, and a way to achieve it. All it will take is one sacrifice to set events in motion.'

'You've met with Calaitin,' Vivienne said softly.

'Very good, my dear. Indeed I have, a very peculiar - group, but one with aims I can sympathise with. Thanks to them I will have a way off this rock.' She looked around the room disdainfully. 'Not before time.' 

Kastchei smiled, and the expression was grim, promising death. His fingers probed the scar Alia had left on his cheek, livid even against his tanned skin. 'Be very careful, Alischka. Be very sure your hold over me is secure.'

__

Master of the Wild Hunt. Vivienne shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cold. Again, there was the sense of power drawn tightly between these two. Not for the first time in her life, she wished her gifts lay in that direction. Tal at least would have been able to see what was happening in this room.

Alia's smile was no less grim than her former lover's. 'Secure? My dear Kasya,' she purred, 'it's total. Do you need further proof?' She stretched out her arm towards him, pointing. The green serpent bracelet on her arm glowed with a deep jade light. In the eerie glow, for a moment she looked as though she was still wearing Kastchei's horned mask. The word she uttered next was incomprehensible, but a sliver of green light speared Kastchei through the chest, sending him flying back to crash against the wall, with a cry of agony. Vivienne rushed Alia again.

'Stop it! You made your point! You're killing him.' Trying to move the sorceress was like trying to move marble: she was solid, unyielding. Vivienne's hand caught the side of the serpent charm, and she screamed as it burned her flesh: ice cold, death cold, to the touch. She fell, cradling her arm, too shocked to move as Alia swept from the room, taking no more notice of her than she might have done a flea. 

She would have welcomed a good faint, about then, but for once, oblivion, in defiance of all the known laws of good drama, failed to beckon. Instead she lay on the cold floor, trying not to whimper too much when she rolled on her injured arm.

'Vivienne?' Kastchei's voice, and for once he sounded how she felt. She watched him make his way carefully over to where she lay. She didn't complain as he picked her up, although she did cry out when he touched her arm. Mercifully, he didn't carry her far, just over to a couch in the corner of the room, where he placed her gently.

'I'll be back. Take your shirt off if you can.' Nodding because she didn't trust her voice, she eased the shirt off carefully, unable to bite back a cry when the fabric rubbed her injured arm. There was no mark on the skin, but it felt as if every nerve was on fire.

Kastchei came back a few minutes later, carrying a small box.

'An interesting variation - to simulate the effects of her ice-fire by nerve induction. I didn't know she could do that.' He took a small bottle out of the box and applied the contents to his hands.

'Perhaps she took lessons,' Vivienne said through clenched teeth. 'Do you think we could possibly save the admiration for later? This hurts like hell.'

Kastchei's hands were already tracing a complex design on her skin, gently smoothing the balm onto the damaged area as he did so. Vivienne gasped with relief as the pain faded to a more bearable level. His hand brushed away the tears of pain she didn't know she'd been crying.

'There. It pains me to see so lovely a princess weep such bitter tears.' He said softly, kissing her cheek.

'I'm no princess,' she managed to reply. He smiled, as if at a jest only he was aware of.

'Perhaps. But all tears are bitter.' He handed her a clean shirt, one she hadn't seen him retrieve. 'Put this on, and try to rest.'

'Where are you going?' she asked, her voice muffled by a mouthful of fabric as she struggled to pull the shirt on one-handed.

'To see if I can find Alia before she does something we'll both regret.' Kastchei was gone before Vivienne had a chance to ask more.


	3. The Wild Hunt and the Hut on Hen's legs

****

Firebird

By Helen Fayle

****

Three: The Wild Hunt, and the Hut on Hens legs

The wolf didn't stop running until he came to a large fast flowing river, swollen with the melt from the retreating ice. Bergs and broken trees bobbed briskly along its length, clashing and tumbling in the raging torrent. The Grey Wolf allowed the bard to alight, and sat on his haunches, staring at the far shore. Taliesin laid Phoenix beside them, and examined hir closely. At his touch, Phoenix stirred, raised a hand to a bruised forehead and winced.

'Easy,' Taliesin said softly. He helped Phoenix to sit up. 'Better?' Phoenix nodded, and promptly looked as though it was regretted.

'If this is the River of Souls, I hardly thought to find you two keeping me company.'

'You're better,' Taliesin said with a strained laugh. He turned to the Grey wolf. 'Well?' Taliesin asked. The Grey Wolf nipped at his flank, and faced the bard.

'Now we must cross,' said the wolf. Taliesin stared at the mighty flood, and then back at the Grey Wolf, who stared at him quite matter-of-factly.

'Isn't there a bridge?'

'Do you see one?' asked the Grey Wolf. Taliesin sighed heavily, and sat down beside him, his harp on his lap.

'That's not funny,' he said.

'It wasn't meant to be,' said the Grey Wolf. He scratched noisily behind his left ear. 'But we still have to cross.'

'Then tell me how,' said Taliesin, by now more than a little annoyed.

'I'm just your guide. You'll have to work out the details for yourself,' said the Grey Wolf. He looked pointedly up at the sky, where the sun was sinking low, casting a rosy glow over the silt-sodden waters, giving the river a sullen tint.

Taliesin stood, and walked to the riverbank, careful to keep clear of the crumbling edge. The river here was narrower than the length he could see to either side, but as still wider than he'd care to swim, even if he were not injured, or the river in such a rage. The debris carried along by the flood made such a prospect doubly dangerous.

Yet the wolf would not have brought him to this point on a whim, surely? So there had to be a way across. He sighed. So much for his reputation as a Master of Riddles.

His perusal of the river was interrupted by Phoenix, who tapped him on the shoulder. Taliesin turned, instinct helping him to stop Phoenix's fall as the sudden exertion took its toll.

'Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean that something is not there' Phoenix said. With Taliesin's supporting arm around hir waist, they wandered along the riverbank, finally stopping at a point just a few yards away from the Grey Wolf. Phoenix reached out a hand, and closed hir eyes. 

Fingers brushed an icy cold surface, and Phoenix opened hir eyes again. Taliesin stared in awe as the glass span arced overhead, now visible in the rosy light of sunset as the suns rays finally hit the surface at the right angle to make the bridge visible. Phoenix turned with a smile of triumph to the Grey Wolf, who heaved himself to his four paws, and harrumphed at them both.

'Well, you only had to wait,' was all he would say. Taliesin picked up _Leannan's_ case, and still supporting Phoenix made his way over the bridge, the Grey Wolf at his side.

'A test?' he asked. The wolf said nothing. Taliesin shook his head. 'And people think I'm obscure.'

~~~

The pain in her arm had dulled to a throbbing ache, thanks to Kastchei's treatment. Vivienne soon got bored with waiting for him to return and took the opportunity to explore: in all her weeks in the palace, this was the first time she'd seen his quarters.

He was obsessively tidy; there was not an item out of place in the room. Everything was clearly labelled, neat, and clean. Almost unheard of for the magicians she knew back home on Gwynedd. Even Taliesin left his socks on the floor at night.

His notes, when she finally picked the palm lock on the cabinets the volumes were stored in, were again inhumanly neat, and kept in an alphabet she thought looked familiar, but bore no resemblance to anything she'd seen in the Thirteen Worlds so far. Although the symbol in one incantation was disturbingly recognisable. She traced the stylised figure-eight outline of the Seal, with a sad smile. 

'You could just ask.' Kastchei reached around her and lifted the book from her hands.

Vivienne shrugged. 'I'm nosy. Goes with the job.'

He placed the book back in the cabinet and re-keyed the lock. 'The High King's chief troubleshooter and spy? A most unsuitable profession for a woman, if admirably suited to your talents.'

She ignored the jibe. 'Doesn't anything slow you down?' She looked pointedly at the ragged edges of the hole in his shirt where Alia's ice-bolt had struck him. Her own hand, which had brushed the serpent bracelet, still ached. Kastchei pulled the ruined shirt off and strode away into an inner room. He came back a few moments later lacing up a new shirt, dark green this time.

'Alia's magic comes closest to being an antipathy to my being. But no, I've not yet found anything that would kill me. And believe me, many have tried.'

'I'd believe it. We have legends on my homeworld of Kastchei the Undying.' She grinned. 'Although they usually say he's a bloodthirsty killer with all the moral fibre of a Dalek.'

'Really? It's good to be appreciated.' He walked past her into the corridor, and then popped his head back around the door. 'Are you coming? Or do I have to do this by myself?'

'Sometimes, I never know if you're joking or not.' Vivienne muttered as she followed. 'And why do I always have to be the one who gets told to "come on?"'

'Do you know the way through my palace?' Kastchei asked. She shook her head. 'Well then, come on.'

Alia's workrooms were separate from her quarters, in a wing of the palace that overlooked the outer walls. Fitting, perhaps, for the Queen of Winter: Not for her the magically maintained eternal spring of the gardens. The floor length windows of her rooms opened onto a balcony of white marble, and a view that took in the sterile white plains that stretched from the walls of the palace, to the greater wall that was the great barrier range that divided north from south.

And like Kastchei, Vivienne found after a fruitless search, she didn't seem to believe in leaving anything out in the open where it could be found. Her study held nothing to give a clue as to her plans - the papers on her desk related to nothing more than mundane matters of government.

'In an ideal world,' Vivienne said tartly, 'She'd at least have the decency to leave us a clue.' She sat back in a fur strewn armchair with a sigh, her arms resting on the carved armrests. She turned her head to look at Kastchei, and pulled back suddenly as she came face to face with the mask of an arctic fox, draped with the rest of its pelt over the back of the chair. With a grimace, she pushed its glassy eyed face away from her.

'You'll find that's a convenience of poor storytelling. As is this,' he ran his hand over a carving of a rose inset into the desk. 'But thankfully, sometimes clichés do have some basis in fact.'

Vivienne walked over and peered over his shoulder. 'Secret compartment?' She tched . 'Tacky.'

Kastchei gave her a warning look and turned his attention back. 'Pressure lock, usually. Aha.' There was a slight _click_ and the panel opened outwards, revealing a small cubby hole. An empty one.

'Back to the drawing board?' Vivienne asked facetiously. Kastchei placed his hand in the space and drew back a small black scroll, almost invisible in the darkness of its hidey-hole.

'I think not.' He unrolled it carefully, and passed his hand over the surface. In its wake, letters of fire shone on the inky black durafilm. 'Ensorcelled and encoded, but I see the glyphs for "sleeper" and "dragon". Beyond that, nothing I recognise.'

Vivienne pointed to a symbol that formed part of a complicated sigil in the centre of the document. 'I know this one - Tal and I saw it a few months ago, on Gwynedd.' It was a stylised hourglass, or figure eight, that on closer inspection proved to be composed of a spider-shape, the legs curled around head and abdomen. 

'It forms part of a seal,' Kastchei said, tracing the outline with a gloved finger. 'It looks familiar, as well.'

'The seal in your chambers,' Vivienne said. 'This is a version of the same sigil, used by the dragon's "enemy"'

He placed the scroll back in its hiding place. 'Tell me.'

'The Calaitin were working with these demons - they look like spiders - giant spiders, to kill a dragon - Delbâeth, the Shape of Fire. The symbol is theirs. I think it has something to do with their War with the Dragons. Tal seemed to think its symbolism was very precise, a mockery of the sign of infinity, representing their ability to travel in time, and also a challenge to the Dragons, a bastardised copy of their own sigil.' She hesitated, then decided to ask her question. 'Why _do_ you have the Dragon's Seal in your quarters?'

He looked down at her. 'I have my ties to that race.'

'That's not much of an answer.'

'It's the only one I'm going to give. But if we save the dragon Alia has, perhaps you could ask _her_.' He sighed. 'We waste time here, Alia is long gone.'

'Can you find her?'

Kastchei smiled. 'Oh, I can find her. The question is, do you have the stomach for the hunt?'

'Pardon?'

Kastchei handed her a small horn, yellowed ivory, unadorned, cracked with age. A thin strap of dark leather tied to each end allowed it to be slung across a shoulder and carried. A few long russet hairs still clung to one section of the worn skin. 'I am the Master of the Hunt, and the Hunt can track anyone, anywhere. Keep this for safety. If we are separated, and the hounds turn on you for any reason, sound it. They will not harm the bearer.'

'You're going to call the Wild Hunt?'

'Not exactly,' he said, his voice trailing in his wake as he strode from the room, heading in the direction of the stables. Vivienne trotted to keep up. 'I couldn't if I wanted to, I lost five hounds to your friend and his allies. Thankfully, the full hunt is not needed for this.'

As she tried to keep pace with his retreating back, Vivienne could have sworn she heard the word 'yet' said under his breath.

~~~  


'Across the Kingdoms of Darkness and Light?' Tal gave the Grey Wolf a withering look. 'You could have just said, "It'll take a day to get there…"'

'And take all the fun out of it?' said Phoenix, with a silvery laugh, knowing the Grey Wolf's nature.

The Grey Wolf sniffed at the base of a tall, stately pine, then lifted his leg and marked the trunk. Tal winced as the pungent smell of urine hit him, acrid and rank after the almost sterile scents of the tundra. It mingled with the crisp scent of pine, and the strangely out of place scent of decay that permeated the forest that rose up in front of them.

It was an oddity, this forest. The scanty evergreens mingled with the bare bleached bones of deciduous growth, their leaves the only splash of colour, and the only sign of life, in an otherwise barren land. Yet strangely, the forest was dense with undergrowth, and instead of the sense of stillness that pervades a forest in winter - that feeling that just beneath the surface, despite the appearance of death, life sleeps, ready to return to life with the coming of spring - the sense here was that death lived, and thrived. Here, the evergreen were the anomaly; life-in-death. The scent of decay came from this obscene parody of the seasonal cycle.

This forest was dead, yet it lived. 

Slung in her case from Tal's back, _Leannan_, living bough of the World Tree, thrummed a bass string nervously. The trees reacted, the sound of rustling leaves echoed around wolf and man, despite the lack of wind.

'In there?' Taliesin shivered, and tried to tell himself it was just the cold. The Grey Wolf padded over to sit at his feet, his paws leaving no track in the snow.

'Deep within the heart of the forest, you will find the _khoziaika lesa_, the one they call Baba Yaga_._ She is Mistress of the Forest, and of the spirits within it. The only way you will cross the mountains to the southern plains in time is to persuade her to part with one of her mares. Surely an easy task for one gifted with so quick a tongue?'

'Compared to you, he's an amateur,' Phoenix replied dryly. The Grey Wolf might have smiled at that. Certainly, his tongue lolled out of the corner of his mouth. He was returned to his original size now, and looked obviously hurt. 'We go on alone from here,' Phoenix said to the Taliesin.

'I may guide you no further, harper,' said the Grey Wolf. 'I can only tell you three things: stray not from the path, believe not all you see or hear, and above all do not eat that which you do not see another taste first.'

Taliesin bowed to the Grey Wolf. 'You have been of more help than I could have hoped for. You have my thanks, Grey Wolf.'

'Heh. A week's sleep would aid me better,' said the Grey Wolf. But he did not look too displeased, even when Phoenix hugged him tightly. And with that, they took their leave of him, and entered into the forest.

The forest closed in on them almost immediately. Within its borders, there were no sounds of life. No birds sang; no creatures scuttled through the undergrowth - such as it was. The dense growth managed at one and the same time to look both dead, and yet obscenely alive. And the darkness…

Even in the oldest forests, in winter, light filters through the bared barren canopy to the ground. Here, in a place that should have been as bare as any forest on Gwynedd, the canopy, although devoid of life, still trapped the cold winter sun above the level of the lowest branches. The trees had grown so as to trap the dead leaves of centuries of seasonal fall into a solid roof above the forest floor. Where there should have been light, there was darkness. Where there should, even in a winter forest, been some life eking out a living in the trees, there was unlife: a creeping, certain sensation between the shoulder blades that while something watched, and moved, and perhaps even fed, it was not of the living.

And amongst the debris and decay, there was also the ice. Everywhere, clinging to every surface, hanging from every branch, every leaf. A place of deep contradictions, the forest they walked through. Darkness lit only by the faint light glittering from a stray, thin ray of sun that hit a stalactite of ice soon gave way to a blackness so deep, so thick, Tal thought he could cut it with a knife.

Yet the path wandered on, deeper into the heart of the forest. Their feet found it with each step, unnaturally clear, and he knew they were guided with purpose into the dark heart. 

He was a bard. He had all too good an idea of what that purpose might be. Phoenix was born to this land, and had a lifetime of fireside tales to draw upon. Between them, it was the stuff of nightmares. Phoenix clutched Tal's hand, tighter, tighter as they walked on. He did not complain. There was something comforting in the knowledge that he was not alone in the dark: he could bear the pain.

Whispering voices carried on the still air, soft, and thick, as if heard through layers of deep furs, muffled. Pleading.

The sharp cry of a creature in pain, abruptly cut off. 

A soft sigh, a moan, sobbing that continued for several minutes (or was it hours?). Once, he almost turned from the path, thinking he heard the scream from the throat of a wolf. His boots brushed the edge of the undergrowth before he heard the warning from Memory, deep within.

__

"Stray not from the path…" 

Phoenix, hir hand torn from his, calling his name... Yet the voice came from more than one direction, and he halted, uncertain.

__

Thought, _like the sharp stab of the Raven's beak, reminding him of who, and what he was. He stood still, listening. Can you deceive a bard with sound?_ He deftly separated in Memory the strands of echo, reality; the true note of Phoenix's unique voice, and turned.

It took him several minutes to find the path's course again, feeling his way carefully back to what he hoped was the centre of the trail. Phoenix hugged him close, almost crying with relief.

'You were gone for hours…'

He denied it, but was left unsure. _Believe not all you see or hear…_ Holding Phoenix close, he walked on. Behind them, as they continued, he thought he heard voices, calling out in disappointment. One hand gripping the strap that held _Leannan_ to his back, the other holding tight to Phoenix, he walked on.

~~~

__

It takes time to reconnect to the real-space interface, even for one of her kind, once the spells are cast. And she's tired, so tired, after trying to fight off the incantations of the woman who attacked her, and her chosen companion.

She tests the confines of her prison. Not the walls of stone and mortar, or even the wards built into the tower that holds them both, but the intangible, subtle changes to the structure of the universe that enfold her physical presence, and bind it, and her, in place: unable to change shape, or to touch the void that would enable her to escape.

The enemy knows her kind too well. She senses their touch behind the woman who has captured her. Feels it every time she approaches one of those cold blue gems that lies on the floor of her prison, untouchable by her kind.

She worries for the companion-to-be left behind. She hates to be alone more than anything. Except, she amends, being trapped.

She tests her bonds again, and senses the woman, watching, behind the stone walls. Sees (for her senses are not confined by the bonds) the familiar symbol she wears upon her arm. The serpent eating its own tail. Puts a name to the face. 

Well. 

But it does her no good. She decides instead to conserve her strength. Waiting, for the right moment. She makes her "body" go and sit down against the farthest wall from the door, and she waits.

She's good at that. After all, she has all the time in the world. 

At least, she used to.

~~~

It should have been getting darker (if such would be noticed in the decaying gloom under the trees). The sun had been high when they'd entered, and they'd been walking for what felt like hours. Yet the gloom seemed finally to be lightening as they progressed, and the heavy, still air that muffled every sound was thinning, clearing. 

The claustrophobic atmosphere didn't lift with the sudden freedom of sight and sound, however. If anything, the change made the forest seem even closer. What was unseen, and imagined, whilst terrifying, was at least still unseen, unheard. Where all senses were dulled, the mind could at least say "there is nothing there…" With the return of sight, of sound, came half seen shapes and boundaries, half heard whispers and rustlings, now closing in, or so it seemed. What was distant, was now close at hand, in that place just over the shoulder in the mind's eye where danger lurks just on the periphery of perception, a clawed hand just out of sight, ready at anytime to grasp soft flesh in its taloned fingers.

Neither of them spoke, as they walked on, feeling perhaps that it would attract unwanted attention. Once, Taliesin saw a tall, spindly figure cross their path, a stick-man, all leaves, twigs and trailing bramble. It loomed in front of them on the path, as if rivalling the tallest trees, and they shrank back. It passed, vanishing into the bushes, diminishing, merely a rustle in the stunted tangle of undergrowth. Phoenix broke their silence briefly to answer Tal's unspoken question.

'A leshii,' s/he whispered softly. 'A spirit of the forest. We draw closer to the Baba Yaga- they are her creatures.'

Some unknown time after that, they broke out of the treeline, with no warning, at the foot of a tall hill.

Only a few tall pines graced the slopes, and it was free from undergrowth. No snows lay upon it - instead, the slopes were covered in long, broad-leafed grasses, which almost, but not quite, obscured the view of the hut on the summit.

It was a square little hut, with a peaked roof. In the dim light, the windows gaped like the black eyeholes of a skull, staring down from its lofty perch. And the strangest thing of all was that this little hut stood on hens legs, one at each corner. As they walked slowly up the hill towards it, it neatly stepped around, on the spot, one step at a time, until the hut turned a full circle. Turning, turning, one clawed foot after another, stepping as daintily as any farmyard hen.

Around the hut, half hidden by the long grass, were the remains of fence posts. They must have been white once, Taliesin thought, staring at them. Long, ivory posts, the railings tumbled from them to lie in the grass, topped each and every one by a round white ball.

Phoenix's hand in his, he walked on. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw more of the strange stick-creatures capering, growing bolder as he approached their mistress.

They reached the summit of the hill, and both were fascinated, unable to look away from the chilling sight that greeted them.

__

They must have been white, once… 

Bone white. Leg bones, arm bones, lashed together, forming a macabre ring around the prancing hut on its clawed feet. And the round balls were skulls, turned to face inwards, towards the hut. All but one, which faced them now, black eyeholes staring at them, from atop a post which seemed to mark the point of entry into the enclosure, a purposeful gap in the ramshackle boundary.

One of the leshii was bold enough to pluck at Taliesin's coat sleeve, and he jumped, startling Phoenix, who was already on the edge of frayed nerves. The creature ran away, giggling, bobbing up and down in the long grass, as if playing hide and seek with them.

'Do we go in?' Taliesin asked. He took a step towards the gateway. Phoenix pulled him back.

'Wait. In the stories, the heroine always had to stop the hut before she could enter.'

'I don't suppose you know the charm by any chance?'

Phoenix pulled a face. 'It's just a story… what if it doesn't work?'

Tal patted Phoenix's arm. 'Stories are my trade. There's more truth to them than most people believe. Try it. What do we have to lose?'

'Our lives?' Phoenix sighed, took a deep breath, and called out: 'Little hut, little hut, stand the way they mother placed thee, with thy back to the forest and thy front to me!'

Straightaway, the hut stopped turning on its hens legs, and a voice called out from within: 'Who calls upon the Mistress of the Forest?'

Taliesin stepped between the gateposts, Phoenix behind him, close enough to keep bumping into him when he didn't step quickly enough. 'Taliesin ap Gwion, a bard of Gwynedd, and the court of King Elphin, and this is Phoenix, of the Tribe.' He bowed towards the door of the hut, which now swung open. Silhouetted within the frame was the figure of a woman. Very tall, she was, and thin, but stooped with age. She wore a head-dress that formed a frame around her face, decorated with thin veils, as fine as gossamer, and hung with small bells that tinkled as she moved. Tendrils of long hair escaped this head-dress, and hung down over her shoulder, accentuating the elongated curves of sagging breasts that must surely have hung almost to her waist. Her arms were bare, very long, and very thin, the bones inhumanly articulated. She lifted her hand up, palm open and towards them. 

'Then enter, Taliesin of Gwynedd, if you dare.' She turned and walked back into the firelit room behind her. Taliesin walked as boldly as he could towards the hut, Phoenix still at his side.

~~~

The tower had stood at the foot of the pass for centuries. Alianora could remember when the walls were still a virginal white marble, instead of weathered, cracked and yellowed with age. She had had Kastchei take it as his first task for her, a first salvo in her battle to remove the Lord of Summer and replace him with her own man - one more agreeable to her aims. She ran a hand over one blast scar on the north wall, remembering, and smiled. 

__

'This was a sorcerer's lair, once.' _He placed a fur lined coat about her shoulders, and led her past the still smoking bodies to where an older building lay in ruins, only a few tumbledown walls left to mark where it had once stood. 'They do love to build where ways converge. Here, where mountain meets plain, where a road finds a way between north and south.' He knelt at her feet, and gently pulled a stone from the frozen soil, melting the ice that bound it with no visible gesture._

No, not a stone: a skull. So old the bone had turned porous and brittle. It crumbled in his hands, and he blew the remaining fragments off his black glove.

She'd heard the stories - it was, after all, why she'd sought him. But to realise, in that moment, that he'd lived on this world for so long, unchanging, undying - she, who had slept, and awakened to find herself here, and trapped… She fingered the green dragon that curled around her arm. Not for her Kastchei's fate, she'd promised herself. From madness to sanity to madness and back again. 

Did he know who and what she was, she wondered? If he did, he gave no sign. She could tell him, but… No. She was his Queen, he would be her Huntsman, and later, Lord of Summer to her Queen of Winter. It would be enough. For now.

She took his hand. 'All things pass,' she said softly. He smiled down at her, a surprisingly warm smile, for him.

'Yes.' Was all he said, before he leant forward and kissed her…

'Lady?' 

Alianora took a deep breath, chasing away the shadows of the past. 

'What is it, Calaitin?'

The druid limped towards her, in that, as in every other detail, identical to his companions. There were three here with her: she understood there to be twelve of their usual twenty-seven on Skazki. 'The beacon chamber is prepared. You may proceed whenever you are ready.'

'You are certain this will kill the dragon?' She toyed with the bracelet on her wrist, a nervous tic she really wished she could break. Its powers were so limited in this dimension, even boosted by the techniques the Calaitin had shown her.

The druid bowed. 'We have proved this already, once before. You have everything you need. The question is, are _you_ certain that killing this creature will render the sorcerer vulnerable? He must be removed before the Summer comes, and with it his full power.'

Alianora smiled, remembering. He'd trusted her, once, and told her, one night, of the secret of his immortality. Even if not in so many words. 'Oh yes,' she said softly. 'You can count upon that.'

~~~

Kastchei had selected six couple from the kennels, three of them obviously untrained, since they whined and strained at the coupling that linked them to their partners. But when she saw him mounted upon white Sivushka, dressed all in white bar boots and gloves, surrounded by the red eyed, red eared hounds, Vivienne, sat upon black Voronushka, felt the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stand on end.

Twelve for the hunt - and a place left for the One Who Kills. 

An old tradition. She pulled herself back to the present with a start, and buttoned her high collared black coat up under her chin. It still didn't keep out the chill, and she blew on her gloved hands, and wriggled her fingers.

'Are you ready?' Kastchei asked. She gathered Voronushka's reins and nodded. 'Voronushka can keep up, be sure to stay on. I will not be able to return for you.'

He kneed the stallion into a neat turn on the forehand, and the hounds stepped quickly out of the way of the great cybrorse's hooves. Horse and hounds moved briskly through the gate, out of the relative shelter of the palace grounds, and into the Winter. They were immediately almost invisible in the snow. Vivienne nudged Voronushka, and the black followed his stablemate willingly.

Once clear of the palace, Kastchei reined in Sivushka at the top of the first hill, the hounds milling at his feet. He drew from under his coat a horn, larger cousin to the one Vivienne bore. But this was older, made from what creature Vivienne couldn't tell. Not ivory, she thought, although it could simply have been discoloured with age. Antler, perhaps? If so, it was from some deer she'd never seen. She couldn't even make out the shape properly. From one angle it looked like a simple curved horn, from another it was palmate, almost like a set of pipes.

Kastchei raised it to his lips and blew, the sound ringing out sharp and clear. Three long notes, one short, two long. 

What happened next, she couldn't say. It was as if the world _folded_ around them. The hilltop was gone, and instead, she had the impression of being - elsewhere. And yet nowhere. Under her, Voronushka pranced and snorted, and she grabbed a handful of mane. She could see Kastchei, and his hounds, but everything else was…

… a blur. In the space of a heartbeat, the hounds sprang forward, giving voice. Sivushka followed, and Voronushka, rearing slightly, sped after them. After that, as Kastchei had warned her, it was just a matter of not falling off.

~~~

'Visitors,' the crone said, as she stirred the great pot over the flames, 'are few, these days. No more heroes.'

'I'm no hero,' Taliesin said quietly. The Baba laughed. 

'Hah. You say so.' She looked them both up and down, and Phoenix squirmed under the gaze. 'You however - serpent-child, little changeling. You I remember.'

'I don't…' The Baba ladled out a generous helping of her broth. 

'You will, in time. A great gift, the melding of male and female. Foolish of the Tribe to seek to throw it away, but if they have not the wit to see the potential, perhaps fitting that they do so.' Phoenix stirred the spoon in the thick soup, and was about to take a mouthful when Tal placed a warning hand on the raised hand. He shook his head slowly, but the Baba saw. 'So, you listen as well as talk, Bard of Elphin?' She handed him a bowl, then took one for herself, lifting it to her lips and slurping noisily. With a smile, Tal did likewise, and Phoenix followed suit.

'You come for my horses.' It was not a question.

'Yes.'

The Baba's face-frame bells tinkled as she shook her head thoughtfully. 'Many come for my fire mares, but few leave with what they come for.' She leaned forward, her face, shadowed by the head-dress, looking almost demonic in the flames. 'You think you can succeed?'

'I have to.'

She nodded slowly. 'Yes, so you do.' She stood up, and Phoenix realised suddenly, as Tal got to his feet facing the old witch, that she was taller than he. 'The task is simple enough, Harper. Simply guide my mares to pasture, losing none along the way. When you get there, they will head for the stream that runs into these woods. Call them back before they drink. You may take your pick from any that obey.' She laughed harshly. 'Be warned, however - should you fail to control them, they will kill you.'

Taliesin bowed his head. 'Now?' he asked. The crone gestured to the door. 'Your need is great, and time is short.'

'Can you do this?' Phoenix asked, a few minutes later, looking at the corral that held the horses. Never in all the plains the tribe wandered had Phoenix seen their like. They looked - touched by the spirits, as Volkhvy might have said.

'They're cybrorses - artificially grown hybrids of flesh and machine.' He looked the forty mares over with a wary eye. 'They should respond to voice commands, if I can find the right song to control them.'

'Will your magic be strong enough?' Phoenix whispered. Taliesin shook his head.

'It's not mag- I'm not sure. I hope so.' Phoenix leaned forward and kissed him lightly.

'For luck.' 

Taliesin smiled. But before he could speak, Baba Yaga opened the gate, and the beasts surged out and away, Taliesin trailing in their wake, singing as he ran. It wasn't so hard, for a bard, normally. But he was injured, and tired, and so finding the strength was a trial. Yet he could not fail, not this time. One dragon had died because he hadn't been able to do anything, and he would not, could not, let it happen again. Especially to this one… 

So he ran, and sang, and slowly, surely, wove the Words of Command into the rhythm of his stride, into the pattern of his breathing. With it he spun the soft syllables that enhanced his strength, his wind, and his speed. 

There would be a price, later. No power comes freely.

Later. For now, he had a task to finish. The mares were scattered in all directions, and slowly, surely, he brought them back into line, his voice weaving a fugue in forty parts that spoke to each one in turn, weaving each variation into a greater whole, just enough to keep the herd from scattering, not willing yet to expend the power he must later to complete the task set. Sufficient for the task at hand, nothing more. The bards' first law.

The meadow almost came upon him unawares, and the first mare had her nose almost to the silvery surface of the stream before he was recalled to himself. The herd crowded around her, pushing their way to the water's edge, and he listened with his bard's ear to the melody he'd crafted, seeking that one note, one sound, or word, that would call them back.

No time for finesse, he called, a single word, with all the power of his Voice behind it: '**Come**.' 

Equine heads lifted, several turned. Again: '**Come.**'

It was a little chestnut mare, her nose almost touching the water's surface who turned, and walked towards him. Freed of the compulsion, the others bent their heads to drink. The little mare laid her head upon his shoulder when she reached him, and he rubbed the perfect white star between her eyes. 'Just you, little one?' He led her to a convenient tree stump and mounted, and sat quietly as she took him back to the hut in the forest, the landscape speeding past as she ran. Once returned, she stopped with her shoulder against the body of the Baba Yaga, who did not turn to greet them. Taliesin held out a hand to Phoenix, who handed _Leannan_ to him, then mounted behind him warily, and wrapped thin arms around Tal's waist, clinging tightly.

'You are well chosen,' the crone said eventually. She patted the mare on the shoulder. 'Go now, carry them to where they must be, and then return.' The mare nodded once, then sprang forward. Tal was forced to grab a handful of mane, wrap his legs around the barrel of the beast, and hold on for his life, as the mare headed south, as if she would outrace the very wind, or even the fast-setting sun itself.


	4. The Dissolution of Kastchei the Deathles...

****

Firebird

By Helen Fayle

Four: The Dissolution of Kastchei the Deathless and the Dance of the Firebird

Darkness had fallen, when the chestnut mare stopped at the base of a great tower, that dominated a pass between the snow clad peaks. Phoenix slid off awkwardly, almost pulling Taliesin after her. He managed to keep his footing and stop them both from landing in a heap. The mare shook her head once, and then began to gallop back the way she'd come, seemingly none the worse for the ride.

'Goddess speed,' Taliesin whispered. Holding up a shaky Phoenix, he looked up at the tower. 'Why is it always Gothic Phallic?' he muttered under his breath. He took a deep breath, settled _Leannan_ on his shoulders, and looked around. The only entrance was a large metal door on the north side. Beside it, two horses stood: one black, one white - that looked suspiciously like the steed ridden by the woman who'd taken the dragon. A sudden snarl confirmed that feeling: from all sides, several of the white hounds approached, crouched low, ready to attack. He thrust Phoenix behind him, back to the tower door.

'Run for cover if you can', he said. He reached for the release on _Leannan's_ case.

'No need.' A familiar, so familiar voice, missed for so long. He barely heard the long note from the horn she blew, but the hounds faded away, back into the winter snows, like mist.

Vivienne. Standing at the door of the keep, a grin spreading across her heart-shaped face as she looked at him.

'I thought you'd never get here,' she said, just before he swept her off her feet in a bear hug. 

'What kept you?' Vivienne asked, once Tal had put her back down. She gave Phoenix a puzzled look, not sure what to make of her-him-it. She couldn't quite work out what the young person with Tal _was_ exactly.

'Long story, best saved for later. 'I don't suppose you've seen a woman? Tall, seems to have a thing for antlers and she might have a blonde woman with her?'

'Alianora,' Vivienne nodded. 'I know. She's why we're here as well.'

'We?' Tal asked.

A tall figure detached itself from the shadows behind Vivienne.

'She's in the topmost room of the tower, as best I can divine. There might be others with her. Who is this?'

'Kastchei Bes-Mertny, Master of the Hunt, Lord of the Summer Country,' said Vivienne, 'May I present Taliesin ap Gwion, Chief Bard to Elphin of Gwynedd.' Phoenix swallowed hard and hid behind Tal, looking nervous. 

The sorcerer smiled. 'You looked taller when I scryed you earlier. Not very impressive, are you?' he said. He turned to Vivienne. 'Bring them both, we might need their aid.'

'Who put him in charge?' Tal asked. Phoenix, familiar with the legends of the sorcerer, shivered. Vivienne sighed.

'Long story, but you can trust him.' She looked from Taliesin to his young companion. Both looked wary. 'Look, I know his reputation, but you just have to take my word for it. If I'm wrong, you can say "I told you so" all you want in the afterlife.'

'Which will be sooner rather than later if people do not move with alacrity,' came a voice from within the tower. Tal looked at Vivienne. 

'You know, I've known him for less than a minute, and already, I don't like him.'

~~~

A watchtower, once one of many along the trade routes that had criss-crossed Skazki in other days. In Summer, it would be so again. But in the long Winter years, there was little need to guard the passes. Like the traders, bandits did little business in Winter. 

A simple building, inside: a single spiral staircase, lit by ancient, but still functional glowstrips, wandered from bottom to summit, with small rooms on each floor for storage, and sleeping. Alianora, according to Kastchei, had taken the beacon room for her ritual, on the very top level.

On the third, they were attacked. Vivienne recognised the three men a split second after they sprang from the rooms above them, blocking the stairway.

'Calaitin!' There was time for no more, only to get her head down and pull the young woman with Tal out of the way, as the Calaitins' lightning bounced off a shield hastily thrown up by Kastchei. They rolled into the side room, and Vivienne pulled Phoenix behind the safety of the door. Keeping Phoenix behind her, she peered out from the safety of the door. In the close quarters of the landing and stairwell, there was no room for her to get a clear shot at the three Calaitin without hitting either Tal or Kastchei. She could only watch.

One of the Calaitin had already fallen, caught in the ricochet from Kastchei's shield. The others hung back, warily, presumably debating their next move, out of reach beyond the next curve in the stairs.

'Sloppy,' Kastchei said to Tal as the stood side by side to block the stairs. 'Only an idiot uses area effect spells in confined spaces.'

'Do you think a little less critique and a little more action would be better?' Tal said, drawing his force knife. 'Or do you plan to criticise them to death with pedantry?'

Kastchei shrugged. 'It's a plan.' Tal's shoulders twitched. 'Actually, talking might not be such a bad idea.' He looked Taliesin up and down. 'Just how good are you?'

'Pardon?'

'A simple question, surely? You _are_ a trained bard? Quickly, we don't have much time before they come up with something.' Another blast reinforced this, and they both ducked, even though Kastchei's shield protected them.

'Not exactly.'

Kastchei gave him an incredulous stare.

Tal shrugged. 'I'm sort of self-taught.

'Oh, _priceless_,' Kastchei muttered. 'Well do you think you might manage a harmonic wave augmentation?' Another blast brought down a shower of debris from the stone banister, Kastchei behind his shield, was untouched, but it left Tal's already begrimed coat with a layer of dust on it.

'Not a problem,' Taliesin said through gritted teeth. Kastchei took the force knife from him.

'Good. Now we'll need to get close, I don't want to bring the entire place down upon our heads.'

~~~  


Looking down at the bodies a few minutes later, Vivienne grimaced. 'Oh that's _disgusting_.' She stepped over the half-formed puddles that still had pieces of bone floating amid the liquefied remains and the sodden robes. 'I don't think I want to ask…' Phoenix jumped over the remains looking equally ill.

'It worked, didn't it?' Kastchei said, once again taking the lead. As he passed a still pale Taliesin he looked down at the bard. 'You can always wait outside, if you don't have the stomach for it,' he said dryly. Taliesin pulled himself up, pushed past a solicitous Vivienne, and took his force knife back from Kastchei.

'I'm fine.' At Vivienne's silently mouthed "what?" he mouthed back "don't ask." She blinked, shrugged, and shook her head. She stared at the puddles again, too many pictures of how they might have turned from men to pool of goo running through her head.

'Vivienne!' Tal's hushed call from above was a welcome distraction.

'Coming,' she called back softly. She caught up with them at the top of the stairs, in front of a massive cast iron door. Kastchei was running his hands over the designs on the door. Vivienne could see no sign of a lock, hinges or join - it was as if the door grew all of a piece from the rock of the tower itself.

'Iron,' Kastchei was saying, 'and therefore impossible to spell open. It's not pressure locked, and there's no sign of any other device.'

'My turn,' Taliesin said, pushing Kastchei out of the way. 'Actually,' and he couldn't keep a smug note out of his voice, Vivienne noticed, 'it's bloody obvious…' With that, he began to sing. Vivienne laughed as she recognised the song - an old soldiers' bawdy ballad - "The Beacon Watch". The door swung silently back against the inner wall. Tal gave Kastchei a triumphant smirk. 'Sonic locks. This place dates back to before the Isolation, so it was a fair guess.'

Kastchei just shook his head and pushed past him to look inside.

The room was bare, inside. After so many years of living in a world where magic was used as often as science, and frequently with better results, Vivienne had expected circles, seals and incantations scribbled over the floor. Instead, there was one simple sigil - the hourglass lemniscate of the spiders. And pinned by pale azure flames to this, was the woman in blue. There was no one else in the room. 

'Wait.' Kastchei's outstretched arm stopped Taliesin from running into the room. 'Alia isn't stupid enough to leave this room unguarded. He examined the doorway carefully before stepping through it. Vivienne let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding as he walked into the room and nothing happened. 'It's trapped, but there's nothing elaborate. Just watch your step,' he told them. Carefully, a step at a time, he made his way over to the woman on the floor. Once at her side, he knelt to examine the fiery bonds that held her fast.

'Crystal, of some sort,' he called back to Taliesin. 'A blue crystal. It seems to have some psychoactive properties. She's held with telekinesis, not with magic. The flames are just for show.'

'I'll keep watch,' Vivienne told Tal. He nodded and entered the room, careful to tread where Kastchei before him had. He knelt at the sorcerer's side.

'Can you free her?' The woman lay unmoving, her eyes staring upwards, unable to acknowledge them.

'This isn't my area of expertise - she's used techniques I cannot unravel. There is sorcery here, but it's not part of what holds her. If I…'

'**No**…' The voice was mental, and from the woman. **'Trap… for you…**'

Vivienne heard it too, and turned to look, and saw Tal's hand gripping Kastchei's a fraction of a second before the sorcerer touched the dragon. 

'You never could do anything the easy way, could you, Kasya?' Too late, Vivienne turned, her hellfire pistol raised. Alia stood in the corridor, holding Phoenix, her fingers on the key to the latent force knife pressed against hir neck. Her face was covered by a black half mask that curved behind her head, sprouting two large antlers. 'Out of the way, Vivienne, and drop the weapon.' Vivienne laid the weapon on the floor and stepped into the room. 'Nice of you to bring witnesses.' She pushed Phoenix into the centre of the room, where the youngster fell at the side of the prone dragon, fielded by Kastchei before hitting the flagstones. 'You, I recognise you - weren't you the meddling fool with the pet wolf?' She dismissed him quickly. 'No matter, get away from there, unless you want to share Kastchei's fate.' Vivienne, still near the door, saw the almost imperceptible look that flashed between Tal and Kastchei, before the former stood up and moved with his customary grace to stand beside her.

Alia raised her arm, the jade serpent glowing brightly, and pointed at the trio lying in the centre of the seal. Kastchei stood up, and faced her. 'You do know that I will not let you have her,' he said quietly, coldly.

Alianora laughed. 'My darling, dearest Kasya - it was never the dragon. She's just the means to an end, the one who holds your soul. Wasn't that what you told me, one night? She's the one who keeps you immortal? Invulnerable?'' The eye of the serpent glowed, and the dragon screamed, writhing within the limits of her bonds, which glowed midnight blue in reply. Kastchei sank to the floor, struggling to bite back a cry of his own. Vivienne could see the pain in his eyes, and would have run forward if not stopped by Tal.

****

Not yet, he cautioned her, using the Compulsion to carry his sotto voce command. **We only get one chance. Wait for his signal.**

Alia dropped her hand, and the dragon's cries stopped. Kastchei was left kneeling on the floor, propped up on one hand. Behind him, Phoenix tried to comfort the stricken woman. Kastchei's eyes never left Alia's face, and they almost glowed with anger.

'You forget, Alia, who you deal with,' he rasped, struggling still for breath. She took a deep breath, smiled, and shook her head with mock sadness.

'Goodbye, Kastchei.' She raised her hand again. 'Give my regards to the afterlife - they must have been waiting a long time for you…'

Green fire spat from the bracelet, twisting around the figures in the centre of the room, seeking the first crystal holding the dragon, then the next, racing around a sudden web of blue/green fire that began to envelop the tableau. In the split second before it hit the fourth crystal, Kastchei reached out his hand and placed it in the flame's path, in the process triggering the latent wards designed to trap him. The flames coiled around him instead, and the dragon was free - somehow on her feet before Vivienne could see her move.

She made her own move, diving towards the door as she heard Taliesin sing out a single note, that targeted one of the crystals. She thought she heard it shatter as she reached for her discarded blaster. By the time she'd rolled into a position to see clearly, Alia raised her arm again and this time pointed at Taliesin. The bolt of green lightning threw him backwards across the room, cutting off his song.

For Vivienne, the rest happened in slow motion. Alia's flame now flickered and burned with a clear light, and she moved until it enveloped Phoenix, the woman, and Kastchei. Without taking aim, Vivienne fired. 

Alia screamed, and the bracelet on her arm shattered, fragments hitting the floor. Holding her ruined arm, seared to the bone, Alia fell heavily against the wall, barely conscious.

Whatever she had triggered, however, continued unchecked. The three remaining crystals more than enough, it seemed, to continue what she had begun. The light surrounded the figures nearest the seal, although Kastchei had been thrown clear.

Shielding her eyes against the glare, Vivienne could see Phoenix trying to support the woman, only for the two of them to vanish from sight as the light intensified. Vivienne looked away, eyes watering. 

'We've got to stop this!' she heard Tal shout. 

'You can't,' Kastchei called back. 'Once set in motion, there's nothing you can do that won't kill all of us. There's no time to unravel the spell.'

'You're the sorcerer, do something!'

Vivienne looked up at the two men, who stood facing each other, both looking equally desperate. It was Kastchei who moved. Without warning, he turned and leapt into the light, which dimmed perceptibly as he stood inside its radius, arms outstretched. Phoenix and the woman were curled on the floor, and Vivienne couldn't see where one ended and the other began. She looked away again, blinking away tears and the afterimage. On the other side of the room, she could see Alia, slumped against the wall cradling the ruin of her hand.

'What's he doing?' she called out to Tal. The noise was growing - a high pitched hum that made the entire room resonate.

'I have no idea, but whatever it is doesn't seem to be-'

The note of the hum changed, and the light fragmented, changing from white light to a fractured spectrum, casting her own and Tal's shadows in myriad colours over the pale floor. As if from a great distance, she heard Kastchei scream.

'No!' She struggled as Tal held her back. 'Let me go!'

'No, Vivienne, you can't help him. Whatever he's doing, he'll have to do alone. I can't counter that kind of sorcery.'

'You can help _her_ though, surely?' she pulled away from Tal's grip, and pointed to _Leannan_, propped up against the wall. 'She's a dragon, this is magic designed to kill her, and you helped Delbâeth.'

'Don't you understand? I could kill all of them!'

Kastchei was on his knees, now. Though the light hurt her eyes, she could just see him, chanting. The light seemed concentrated on him, now, pouring through him, before it enveloped the two figures behind him.

'Tal...'

He walked away from her, to where _Leannan_ sat, and picked her up, cradling the harp gently. After a moment to check the strings, he began to play. Softly, at first, his notes finding the rhythm of the light and sound that filled the chamber, at first matching it, as he found the tones he needed, and then slowly very slowly, carefully, beginning to play a counterpoint to the hum.

In response, the light began to pulse, following Taliesin's music for a few beats, then returning to its usual pattern. As he played, the pattern followed him more often than it did the hum, which itself was changing, starting to harmonise with Tal's playing.

Switching her attention back to the sorcerer, she saw Kastchei had risen to his feet, and seemed stronger. The light no longer hid him from view in a blaze, but now streamed in a concentrated beam _through_ him, through where his heart should be, scattering behind him, harmless light, no longer sorcerous. His chanting had taken up the rhythm of Taliesin's music, and with a shock, she recognised the tune: the Song he had sung under the Crystal Mountains, when Delbâeth had died.

Dragonsong: Delbâeth's own music, blended with that of _Leannan_, born of Yggdrasil, and Tal's own talent, blending, melding, shifting to match the power of the sorcerer, who caught it up with his own magic and wove it into his spell.

And it wasn't enough.

Once before, she had heard a dragon die, as Delbâeth, torn apart by the spiders, had screamed out his pain and the Universe had answered with its grief. Now she felt that same cry, this time from the woman in blue: a fractured note that echoed in her head and in the room, a sound of space and time itself tearing.

Not nearly enough, and she saw Tal knew it, even though he kept playing, raising his voice now to match _Leannan's_ sweet note. And turning, she saw the look of helpless despair on Kastchei's face, as the beam of light broke apart and bathed the three in its path again. Saw before the light blinded her again his face take on a look of stubborn determination. She had to turn away, her eyes closed against the blinding light that suddenly filled the whole room, blinding light, even through closed lids. She screamed, and thought she heard Tal cry out in pain.

Then there was only silence, and darkness.

~~~  


'Vivienne?'

A hand brushed her cheek, gently. 'Vivienne.'

She opened her eyes carefully, afraid of what she might see - or not - she'd been blinded before, and for a moment she was terrified that it might be so again, for all she could see was black...

...black cloth, and a silver button: Taliesin's coat. She looked up into his face, saw her own relief mirrored in his pale green eyes, and hugged him fiercely. It felt like an eternity before she pulled away and asked the obvious question.

'The others? Kastchei?'

Taliesin helped her to her feet, and she looked around. There were only two figures on the floor, where there had been three.

The closest was dressed in white, and didn't move.

'Kasya!' She ran to him, almost tripping in her haste, and dropped to her knees at his side. He didn't move as she touched him, turned him over. Unconscious, or dead, she had no way of knowing. But he was still, so still, his eyes closed, no trace of breath that she could see. She felt, rather than saw, Taliesin kneel at her side.

'Check the others, I'll see to him. I've got more experience with the effects of sorcery, remember?'

When she hesitated, he added, '**Go**.'

She bit back a pithy comment at him using the voice on her, knowing he was right, and moved over to examine the other fallen figure. It was Phoenix, and there was no sign of the other woman. Vivienne helped Phoenix to sit; the hermaphrodite seemed dazed, but otherwise unharmed. 

'Are you all right?' she asked. Phoenix nodded, then looked rather pale and swallowed hard, and Vivienne made her put her head between her knees. 'Deep breaths, you'll be fine.' She looked back over her shoulder, to where Tal was sitting with Kastchei. Tal saw her glance and smiled briefly.

'He's alive, just. Whatever he did almost finished him off. I could barely find his pulse, it's so faint. We need to get out of here, get him and Phoenix somewhere they can recover.'

'Downstairs, one of the sleeping quarters would be best.' Then the meaning of his words sank in. 'What did you say?'

'We need to get them somewhere-'

'Before that.'

He looked puzzled. 'I could barely find his pulse?' He struggled to get the unconscious sorcerer onto his shoulder to lift him. Kastchei was taller and rather more muscular than Tal, and made for a heavy burden. Vivienne was having a similar problem with Phoenix, the other being taller than her by several inches.

'Tal - he doesn't have a pulse.'

'Well he does now,' Tal replied. He stepped carefully down the stairs, wary of the worn stone and his burden. Vivienne, with the semi-conscious Phoenix, was having almost as much trouble. 'Perhaps when he wakes up, he'll have some answers. Something unexpected happened in there at the last, I'm still not sure what.'

Vivienne had glanced back at the tower room when he spoke, just before they turned the first corner on the stairs. Only after she'd reached the second turning did she realise what was missing.

~~~  


Alia clutched the shattered fragments of her hand as she ran through the corridors of the palace. Her left arm was still completely numb from the elbow down - a blessing, she thought, catching sight of the cauterised carnage Vivienne's shot had made of her arm and hand. The jade bracelet had melted into the flesh in places, the single jewelled eye looking back at her from the ruin. 

In the yard in front of the keep, her transport awaited. One of the Calaitin stood at the foot of the ramp of a large dromond. He bowed as she approached, slowing her run to a walk.

'You failed,' he said coldly. Another of his order appeared at the opening into the bowels of the dromond.

'You failed to warn me how powerful the bard was.' She brushed past both men on her way inside, still keeping her pain at bay. 'And if I failed, it was in underestimating Kastchei, not in the execution of our plan.'

Three Calaitin surrounded her as the dromond took off. Heading north, she could feel. North, to the mountains.

'We needed the dragon's spawn out of the equation -' one of them began. She raised her right hand.

'We needed Kastchei dead, and the dragon would have been a bonus. As it is, her fate is uncertain, he is weakened, and until Summer comes, his recovery will be slow.'

'Yet summer comes' said another, 'and your power wanes with the retreating Winter.'

Alia sat down in one of the acceleration couches, and cradled her ruined arm. 'Summer comes, but until then, I have power enough. There are other ways of achieving your - our - goal, though not as sure, they will suffice.'

'They had better,' another Calaitin said softly. An older one, grey streaked his dark hair. He limped towards her. 'For thirty years we have worked towards this end, we cannot fail now.'

'Whatever.' Alia waved her good hand dismissively. 'You get your "Thorn", and I get access to the Alliance, cut free from my ties to this planet.' One of the younger druids approached, and she held out her injured arm for his healing. 'I will have what was promised to me.'

'You are in no position to make demands, Alianora.' The elder Calaitin folded his arms. Alia shrugged, and winced as this pulled scorched muscle.

'It's a small thing. But more than that, I want Kastchei's head on a stake for this.'

The Calaitin turned away. 'You may pursue what vendettas you wish, so long as it does not distract from our main objective.'

Alia sank back in the couch, relief flooding her body as the healing removed the pain. 'Ah. Fear not Calaitin. Nothing ever distracts me from my goals.' Through the thick padding of the couch, she felt the dromond accelerate. She lay back and watched, feeling strangely detached, as the Calaitin removed pieces of her bracelet and shattered bone from her wrist.

~~~

Night had fallen by the time they had settled Phoenix and Kastchei in the chambers at the foot of the tower. Both were completely unresponsive, and Taliesin looked worried as he checked them over again.

'I wish I knew what it was he _did_ back there. I couldn't unravel that spell in a year of Sundays.'

'Is it just a backlash from the dragon's death?'

Tal shook his head. 'No. That's just it, she didn't die. That, I would have felt. We both would, remember?' He stared from one still form to the other. 'I think somehow, she bonded with one of them. The trouble is, I don't know which.'

Vivienne looked down at Kastchei, dark red hair spread out over an age-yellowed pillow. In the flickering torchlight, his face looked as pale as death. 'He was the one with the strongest link to her,' she said quietly.

'I know. Phoenix told me the stories. I have to say, he's not what I expected.' He ran his hands through his tangled hair, pulling back off his face. 'Goddess, what a mess. When did this become so complicated?'

'When _you_ decided we'd do better if we split up,' Vivienne said dryly. She sniffed. 'How long has it been since you had a bath? And you look as if a rat's nested in your beard.'

'Thank you so much for that.' The tension resonated between them, so taut that she was afraid that any word from her would break their bond forever. 'I was afraid for you,' he said softly.

It didn't fade. Not completely; there was still too much left unsaid, and too much to do. But she smiled, before she turned her attention back to the unconscious Kastchei. 

'How is he?' Taliesin asked, once she'd made Kastchei more comfortable. She shrugged.

'Your guess is as good as mine. I can't find any injuries, but his pulse is weak. It could be just exhaustion.' She looked over at the still form of Phoenix. 'Yours?'

'The same.' There wasn't really much either of them could say. Vivienne, wanting to avoid awkward questions, busied herself taking Kastchei's pulse again. Her fingers, which before had struggled to find a trace, now found it to be racing.

'Tal.' Seeing the worry in her eyes, he left Phoenix's side and walked quickly towards her. He'd shed the black duster, and she noticed his shirt was torn and bloodied. A long deep claw wound on his chest was oozing beads of blood. He was still ten feet away when Kastchei's body contorted in a seizure.

''I can't…' She pulled back in horror as his skin _rippled_ underneath her hands. 'What the hell was _that?_'

Tal was at her side, holding the sorcerer down, struggling to keep him still. 'Damned if I know, he's the sorcerer. I've got him. Help me.' It took both of them to keep him on the bed. Finally, the spasm subsided, as quickly as it had started, and he lay so still that for a moment Vivienne thought he was dead. Taliesin shook his head seeing her sudden fear. 'He's alive.'

'So it seems.' Kastchei said quietly. Vivienne almost fell off the bed in shock. Only Tal seemed not to be surprised. He helped Kastchei sit upright. The sorcerer took a deep breath, and coughed. 'That hurt.' He looked hard at Vivienne, who was staring at him in shock. 'What? Have I suddenly grown two heads?'

'Your eyes…' 

He looked from Tal to Vivienne and back. 'What about them?'

'They're -' Vivienne stopped herself from reaching out to take his hand. 'They're blue now.' 

Kastchei touched his temple gently, and winced. 'That's probably the least of it.' He coughed again. 'To be honest, I'm rather surprised that I'm still here at all.'

'Is _She_ within you?' Taliesin broke in bluntly. The sorcerer turned to face him. 'The dragon - is she within _you_?'

Kastchei shook his head emphatically. 'No. Believe me, I would know. She and I were linked for centuries.' He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and tried to stand, almost collapsed and was caught by Taliesin. He gave the other man a nod of thanks, and let himself be helped.

'You shouldn't get up,' Taliesin told him. Kastchei laughed.

'I've been told I should not do a great many things, in my lives. It has never stopped me yet.'

'Perhaps now might be a good time to start,' Tal told him tartly. Vivienne watched the two men carefully, knowing Kastchei's temper and uncertain for once of Tal's mood. Then Kastchei laughed, this time with genuine amusement.

'I've killed men for less, harper.'

'Am I supposed to be impressed?' Tal still held his arm. 'Where are we going?'

'To your little androgyne. That is, if you want an answer to your riddle?' Without comment, Tal led him over to Phoenix's side.

Phoenix lay unmoving, even paler than Kastchei had been. Black hair spread out across the pillow, and one arm was flung out across the cover. Asleep, Phoenix looked more feminine, Vivienne thought, following the men. She could see the androgynous lines in the young face though: an eerie beauty, born of both genders and neither. Boyish girl, or girlish boy. Take your pick, she thought. Except that that wasn't even half of it. Phoenix's beauty and strangeness were wholly unique.

There was a mark on the wall beside the bed. Vivienne watched as Kastchei traced the lines of the twisted serpent that trailed across the stone. It looked strangely familiar.

'The mark of the Sleepers,' Kastchei said. The effort of walking across the room was too much, and he sank to his knees, saved from falling by Tal on one side, and Vivienne on the other. Tal's hand rested next to Kastchei's on Phoenix's arm.

'The Grey Wolf mentioned them. He told me to be wary.'

'You should be. They are the damned. This mark -' he traced it again, and Vivienne realised that it reminded her of something she'd seen a long time ago. She gave Tal a sharp look, but he didn't seem to have realised its significance. 'This mark is the mark of those set aside for their "crimes" by an ancient race. One gone from the Universe as if they had never existed.'

'I know of them,' Tal said softly.

'So you should. Like me, you are one of them,' Kastchei said shortly. He placed his hand on Taliesin's chest, on the right side. Vivienne saw Tal wince as Kastchei's hand caught the open wound. 'Two hearts that beat as one.' He took his hand away. 'And mine beat again for the first time in over eight hundred years.'

'Breceliande was a prison planet,' Tal said, remembering. He looked down at Phoenix. 'It's why I came here. Legend says that Merlin was imprisoned here, in a cavern of ice, by Morgaine.'

'_You_ were looking for _Merlin_?' Kastchei stared at Tal, his grey eyes - and Vivienne found it strange to see them so shorn of that alien green glare - held a deep amusement, and she wished she knew why.

'We were looking for the dragon, actually,' she said quietly, kneeling on the opposite side of the bed. 'Taliesin hoped she might have some answers.' She looked down at Phoenix. 'Is she - I mean he - _hir_ all right?'

'Possibly. Only time will tell.' 

Taliesin stared at the sorcerer. 'Just who or what are you, Kastchei?'

'Sorcerer. Dragon-born. Lord of the Summer Country, Master of the Hounds of Annwn.'

'Is that all?' Taliesin asked. Kastchei's smile was cold.

'I could ask you the same question, Taliesin of Gwynedd. You shouldn't exist, theoretically.'

'Tal - Kasya…' Vivienne called to them. 'Something's happening.' She'd backed away from the bed on which Phoenix lay, trembling and afraid. It was Kastchei she walked into, and he placed his arm around her to steady her.

The three of them stared at the bed, first in fear, then in fascination, as Phoenix's body arched once, and then vanished in a blinding flash of blue light. Blinded, they shielded their eyes a fraction too late, and dropped to the ground, blinking away sudden tears.

It was Taliesin who looked up first, blinking away the after image.

'Oh my.' 

Hearing his exclamation, the others looked up.

Phoenix hovered in front of them, a tall androgynous form dressed in blue, wrapped in a radiant blue nimbus. Black hair streamed out behind the slender form. The light from the glowstrips on the walls cast shadows on the uneven flagstone floor. Tal's, Kastchei's and Vivienne's were recognisably human.

Phoenix's shadow was cast upon the far wall: a great winged shape, four legged, rearing up behind the glowing figure. 

Vivienne slowly removed Taliesin's hand from where his nails were digging into her arm.

'Oh my god…' she said softly. Kastchei's response was more pragmatic.

'Fascinating,' he breathed. 'Not quite what I expected, however.'

The light faded, as did the shadow cast on the wall behind the slender androgyne. Phoenix fell limply to the floor, caught before hitting it by Taliesin, who cradled the re-born dragon gently. Phoenix stirred, and Kastchei knelt beside Taliesin. 'The child wakes. Whether or not anything else resides within, I cannot say. My link with the dragon is gone.'

'Phoenix?' Taliesin leaned over the still form. 

'Taliesin.' Phoenix's eyes opened and stared at him, focusing slowly. 'I thought I was dead.'

'Nothing so simple. No, don't try to get up. Rest.' Phoenix let him carry hir back to the bed, unresisting. Kastchei snorted derisively and walked over to stand next to Vivienne. 

'If he thinks dying is simple, he obviously hasn't tried it.'

'Almost,' Vivienne whispered, elbowing him in the stomach. 'Ssh.' 

Taliesin was speaking softly to Phoenix. 'How do you feel?'

'Cold, inside. My head hurts. Like the time I was kicked by a mammoth during a hunt. It feels worse though - as if there's something inside my head.' Phoenix looked up at him, fear in the brown eyes. 'I'm afraid.'

'Don't be. I'm here.' Taliesin stroked sweat soaked hair away from Phoenix's forehead gently. He turned to Kastchei. 'It was your magic that did this. Any ideas?'

'No more than you.' The sorcerer gestured to the doorway, and Tal followed him out of the room. Once out of earshot of Phoenix they stood facing each other, almost but not quite of a height. Taliesin scruffy, travel stained and ragged, Kastchei, still looking weak, but managing to look impeccable.

'I have no more idea of what happened up there than do you. Whatever I did was instinctive, not deliberate. There is, to my knowledge, no way that child can contain the form of a dragon for long without damage,' Kastchei said quietly. 'You do know what they are?'

'A part of the Universe given form, with the ability to _be_ anywhere they choose. Once they also had the ability to be any_when_.'

'Isn't that just like a poet, never putting anything in terms people can understand?' Kastchei sighed. 'They have a considerable physical presence that crosses the boundaries between realities. If that "dragon",' and here he smiled enigmatically, 'melded with that child, she'll destroy her. And soon.'

They both looked backwards into the room. Kastchei placed his hand on Taliesin's shoulder. 'For what little it is worth, I am sorry.'

'You could have been killed yourself up there,' Tal said quietly. 'And if I'm right, you lost something of yourself in stopping Alianora.'

'I'll deal with that later,' Kastchei said. Tal suddenly realised how drawn he looked. Not a frail man in build, he looked - diminished, somehow. 'Much later,' Kastchei said almost under his breath.

'And for now?'

'Wait and hope,' Kastchei told him. 'Wait and hope. For what it's worth,' he offered, 'you may as well be my guests for as long as it takes to repair your vessel.' 

Tal looked at Vivienne, who gave him a helpless shrug. 'I think we're stuck here, for the foreseeable future, at any rate..'

'Just _wonderful,_' Tal muttered as the sorcerer brushed past him on his way to collect the horses. 'You mean I've got to put up with _him_ for a few more weeks? I'll want to kill him after _one_.'

Vivienne grinned weakly. 'Feel for me, lover - I'll have to put up with _both_ of you…' She joked, a little half-heartedly.

Taliesin placed an arm around her waist and held her close, welcoming her familiar presence. He didn't hold her for long - she always resisted him fussing over her - but even as they separated, stared over the top of her head, to where the sorcerer stood in the doorway, a peculiar look on his face that was quickly veiled; so fleeting that he wasn't even sure he could put a name to the emotion.

What he wouldn't understand for a long time was why, when he thought back to the scene in later years, he knew it finally, to be, of all things, _pity_. But then, as the Norns would say, understanding is always easy once all the facts are known.

~~~

© H Fayle 2001.

Coming soon: "The Invisible City" 


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